Oldham Athletic 1-1 Wolves

Wolves’ first FA Cup first round game for a generation resulted in a 1-1 draw at Oldham Athletic’s Boundary Park. Oldham took the lead within the first couple of minutes as Genséric Kusunga headed in an in-swinging free kick. Wolves hit back through left-back Scott Golbourne in the latter stages of the first half to force a Molineux replay.

- Wolves made three changes from Tuesday's 2-2 draw at Carlisle United, and a change in formation. Lining up in a 4-4-1-1 formation, Jack Price returned to the midfield after a worrying bout of migraines, while David Edwards and Jake Cassidy replaced Leigh Griffiths and Kevin Doyle. Edwards was given the role of the furthest forward midfielder, while Cassidy was the lone striker. The role Edwards played was similar in principle to when Doyle plays just off Griffiths, but both play this position very differently. Edwards is all about energy, breaking from deep and using his stamina to provide support. Doyle’s movement tends to be the other way, dropping back into the space and often receiving the ball with his back to goal and using his nous to create. With Edwards in that position, the pressure falls on the rest of the midfield to provide the chances. 

- But, arguably one of the most interesting selection choices was that Jamie O'Hara wasn't on the bench. In last week's report I speculated that he may miss today, trying to avoid becoming cup-tied. Now, it's perfectly possible that he is injured, and this may already have been confirmed by the time you read this. But, the conspiracy theorists will be wondering whether this was a deliberate ploy, and will think that this says a lot about the chance of O'Hara still being at the club beyond January. I guess that if he's also left out in replay, we will have our answer. If he was left out to avoid being cup-tied, then I’d be interested to know whether this was his choice, or the club’s.

- Within a few minutes of kick off, Oldham took the lead through a towering header from Genséric Kusunga. I'm not sure who was picking him up, but given the run Kusunga had at the ball and his impressive leap, I'd be surprised if any of our team could have done much to stop him. When the free-kick was given, I was just thinking that we had out a reasonably small side, with very few of our team being particularly prolific in the air. Most notably, neither Doyle nor Kevin McDonald were in the side, both of whom have been useful when defending set-pieces in their Wolves careers. 

- Perhaps surprisingly given we were playing effectively a 5-man midfield with James Henry and Bakary Sako in the team, we had a distinct lack of width. Both Sako and Henry spent much of their time in the inside channels. This meant there was generally quite a lot of congestion in the middle of the park, and resulted in an awful lot of passing around the halfway line, but with no real penetration. This did leave quite a lot of space to attack for Sam Ricketts and Scott Golbourne, and Golbourne in particular had his most effective offensive match. Twice early on, Sako received the ball in the middle of the pitch and tried ambitious through balls to Golbourne inside the opposition fullback. Both passes were overhit, but gave an indication of both the space that Golbourne had and his willingness to break into it. Oldham didn't heed the warning, and Golbourne managed to sneak in at the far post to equalise, and should have won the game at the death; blazing over from six yards out. Ironically, the equaliser was one of the few times that Henry found himself out wide and was able to deliver a quality cross. He really has been an excellent signing so far and I'm sure every Wolves fan will be pleased when his permanent transfer is confirmed. 

- I mentioned earlier that Edwards played in behind Cassidy, but neither really carried a huge attacking threat. Twice in the first half Edwards managed to get into a one-on-one position with the Oldham goalkeeper, but found the near post side netting both times. On neither occasion did I ever think he'd score, and to not hit the target from two golden opportunities like that was poor. I like Edwards, and am surprised he hasn't been given more of chance in the starting XI this season. But he isn't an attacking midfielder - he's a bundle of energy who is really a box-to-box midfielder, and the only real threat to goal he carries is when the ball is in front of him and he can arrive late. The other problem upfront was that Cassidy hasn't yet impressed in a Wolves shirt. Only once have I seen him play well, and that was when he came on late in the game at Shrewsbury and held the ball up well as we held on for the three points. Today, he made a few really nice first time layoffs, but never looked like scoring. This has as much to do with a lack of service as much as anything, but he needs a goal sooner rather than later. I make that his 13th Wolves game without a goal - not too far from reaching Tomasz Frankowski levels. With Liam McAlinden impressing for Shrewsbury (although not featuring today, presumably due to the loan agreement), Cassidy is going to struggle to stake his claim for a Wolves career long term. 

- Towards the end, Kenny Jackett made two substitutions, bringing on Doyle and Griffiths to try and force the victory. Doyle came on for Jack Price, who really struggled to get into the game. At times, I wanted him and David Davis to swap positions; too often Davis was receiving the ball from the defence and trying to start attacks, but this isn't his role. I'd rather Price was the deeper player in-front of the defence, and Davis slightly further forward winning the ball back higher up the pitch. I thought Griffiths did very well when he came on, arguably doing more in his 10 minutes today than he's done in a couple of other games this season. Had he come on 10 minutes earlier, perhaps at the same time as Doyle's introduction, I think we might have nicked it. We played for too long with no real cutting edge, and had Griffiths and Doyle had longer together they might well have made the difference. 

- Normally, music at football grounds annoys me, getting the same generic crap wherever you go. But today I actually enjoyed some of it - it was like the PA had got hold of my iPod from five years ago, with Arcade Fire’s Keep the Car Running, Vampire Weekend’s A-Punk and The Middle by Jimmy Eat World all being played. 

- Apologies, but this is set to be my last report for a few weeks as I'm away with work. I've missed three games all season, and now I'll probably miss four in a row. The next report will be from Peterborough, but seeing as I'll have only arrived back in England from China the day before, it might not be my most coherent.