Wolves 2-0 Bradford City

Wolves defeated Bradford City 2-0, to claim its fourth consecutive win. Wolves were able to take advantage of Nathan Doyle's first half red card, securing the three points through goals from Kevin McDonald and Nouha Dicko

- After the glut of strikers who left the club yesterday, it could be said that today's match was the start of a new period at Wolves. Perhaps a little surprisingly, both of Kenny Jackett's new forward options were given a start as Leon Clarke made his second debut for the club. Lee Evans, who was substituted at half time in the midweek win at Oldham, was, perhaps predictably, the player to be left out. Elsewhere, it appears that Jackett's back-7 is fairly secure in it's possession of the shirt; surely only the potential return to fitness of Carl Ikeme and Matt Doherty can disrupt the status quo in the defensive positions. Indeed, it appears that Jackett has purposefully built his team from back to front, providing a secure foundation first before adding the attacking flair at a later date. 

- I was a little surprised when I saw the line-up, and saw that Clarke would be starting along with fellow new(ish) signing Nouha Dicko. My first thought was that Dicko might play out wide, with Michael Jacobs returning to the central role from which he was so effective in the first half against Leyton Orient. But instead, Kenny Jackett chose to play Clarke as a more withdrawn forward, in behind Dicko. We started the season with this sort of strategy, giving QPR's Kevin Doyle the role to support Celtic's Leigh Griffiths before giving the position to more natural midfielders in Jacobs and Evans. Obviously, different types of players interpret the position differently, and having Clarke in the role is very different to Evans playing there. It was very noticeable that, as Bradford started the game well, Kevin McDonald was forced to instruct Clarke in the positions he should be taking up when we were out of possession. 

-  Bradford City lined up with a fairly standard 4-4-2, reliant on getting the ball into the forwards Aaron McLean and Andy Gray early. With Bradford's two central midfielders sitting reasonably deep, I suspect that McLean and Gray would have become more and more isolated as the game went on. But, that didn’t transpire quite as I expected, due to the sending off of central midfielder Nathan Doyle. To be honest, I can’t really remember his first caution, but I didn’t think he had anything to argue about with the second. It was a slightly short ball played back to McDonald, who quickly flicked it on just before Doyle slid into him. I don’t really think that there was a huge amount of contact, but only because McDonald was quick enough to jump out of the way (there was no suggestions that McDonald made the most of it, shown by the fact that Doyle shook McDonald’s hand as he was walking off). It was potentially a dangerous tackle, and a yellow card seemed right. There was another potentially dangerous challenge, from Bakary Sako as he slide with two-feet, albeit completely along the ground. Given the position of the assistant referee, I thought Sako may have seen the red card, but referee Scott Duncan decided a yellow card was sufficient. Both of those challenges were far worse than the one perpetrated by Leon Clarke, earning a caution. Gary Jones dribbled past him, Clarke made a swing at the ball with his boot missing both ball and man. Given that Jones had beaten him, and was on the charge, Mr Duncan’s decision to call him back and show Clarke a yellow card seemed a little strange.

- So, Leon. He got a decent enough reception from the fans when announced before the game, and could really endeared himself had he been able to finish an early chance when through on goal. Instead, he looked slow and ponderous, allowing the defender to get back and get a challenge in. Unfortunately, that was the first of a number of wasted opportunities, culminating in him lifting an effort over the bar from the penalty spot right at the death. Before then, he headed two decent opportunities over, and missed another chance when through on goal. But, at least he was getting in the positions – if he keeps doing this then the goals will come. I have to say, I don’t think the position he was in suited him. Kenny Jackett made the point when he signed that he can play in that position, but that doesn’t mean he will thrive there, or that he’s our best option. His best work was when he was upfront with Dicko, twice providing Dicko with decent opportunities. But as a number 10 he didn’t convince. He was fine when he got the ball with his back to goal and could lay it off, but I don’t want that to be how the Number 10 plays. I want him to be playing on the half turn, so he can collect the ball and make things happen. He didn’t really appear to have this sort of ability, lacking, for example, the drive and pace that Jacobs has when played in this position.

- Given that we’ve signed Clarke and Dicko, two forwards, you have to wonder whether we will see more of a return to the 4-4-2 formation that we played earlier in the season. Personally, I think this would be a mistake. Taking into account the quality of the opposition (and so disregarding the 4-0 victory over Gillingham), the best performance that I’ve seen was the 2-0 win over Preston, while the opening 45 minutes against Leyton Orient was even better. In both of these, we played one loan forward with a triumvirate behind; in an ideal world, I would have Sako, Jacobs and James Henry in these positions. This allows McDonald and Jack Price to sit that little bit deeper, and provide the platform for the exciting forward line. I feel that a move back to two forwards would be a step backwards, and a move away from what I think is our most balanced line-up.

- Bradford had started well, but obviously the red card changed the game. They sat back, happy to soak up our pressure before trying to hit us on the break. This almost worked perfectly, and they twice hit the woodwork with rockets that left Aaron McCarey with no chance. But apart from those, McCarey had little to do, and Wolves completely dominated the hour after the sending off. The opener came after a long spell of pressure, Sako laying off to the ever impressive McDonald, whose cultured finish was low into the corner from 20 yards. The second goal came from a rare Bradford attack. Bradford reminded me a little of Jose Mourinho’s Internazionale team who defeated Barcelona in the 2010 Champions League Semi-Finals. When we had the ball, Bradford could defend reasonably comfortably – the problem came when they had the ball, and their players lost their positions. It was no coincidence that the goal that settled the game came after Bradford lost possession, and we were able to take advantage of the space in behind: Jacobs ran at the defence, slid the ball to Sako down the right whose low cross was somehow bundled in by Dicko.

- Possibly the problem with our approach was how lopsided our play was. For much of the game, everything went through Scott Golbourne and Sako on the left flank. In theory, Jacobs was on the right, but spent most of the game anywhere but on the flank; in fact throughout the match our two wingers were often in touching distance of one another. This left Sam Ricketts as our only real threat on the flank, and as fine a fullback as he is, it meant Bradford could defend quite narrowly, knowing they only really needed to defend one flank. When the ball did work its way out to Ricketts, he was often completely isolated, with an inside pass to Jack Price his only option. When playing ten-men, ideally you want to stretch them as widely as possible, but we never quite managed this. When James Henry came on for Sako (minutes after Sako could have been sent off), it was like I was watching the game in a mirror. Now it was the right flank that we attacked down, with Henry putting in three excellent crosses that on another day would have been converted. I couldn’t help but think of how, in recent weeks, Lee Evans has generally taken it on himself to move into the space that Jacobs vacates, meaning we have generally managed to keep our shape. Neither Clarke nor Dicko either had the inclination, or instruction to do this making our play very narrow. I suspect that had we played for a period of time with Henry on the right and Sako on the left, we would have been able to create more chances than we managed.