Wolves 2-0 Notts County

With Brentford winning again, Wolves kept up the pressure on the London club ahead of next week's top of the table clash. Goals either side of half time from Michael Jacobs won Wolves the three points ahead of the trip to Griffin Park.

- Wolves boss Kenny Jackett made two changes to the victory over Bradford City two weeks ago. With questions being asked over how exactly Jackett plans on fitting both Nouha Dicko and Leon Clarke into the same starting-XI, a heel injury for Clarke saved that debate for another week. The other change saw Carl Ikeme return for the rather unfortunate Aaron McCarey, who must be gutted to have spent today on the bench. Personally, I'm a big fan of players only being dropped when they deserve to be, particularly goalkeepers for whom the chance of being rotated back in is slight. The shirt should have been McCarey's to lose. Aside from the question of the goalkeeper, I think today's starting line-up was probably our strongest. If we were playing the Playoff Final tomorrow, those are the eleven men I'd want on the pitch, with the possible exception of Matt Doherty returning for one of the back four. 

- Wolves started the game really well, and had a number of decent opportunities in the opening 15 minutes. Dicko in particular twice went close, firstly firing at the keeper from a narrow angle, before hitting a left footed effort just over the near post. It was very noticeable that Notts County played a very high defensive line with Michael Jacobs and James Henry breaking through, albeit on the flanks. We weren't quite able to get the through ball through the centre quite right, and this is something that has eluded us this season; a couple of Lee Evans assists aside, when did we last score from a through ball? But today, Notts County's high line meant they could pressure Kevin McDonald and Jack Price, not giving the time to pick out the pass. As a result, Price and McDonald were forced deeper and deeper, cutting off the angles for early passes into Jacobs, Henry and Bakary Sako. 

- When the opening goal came, we good value for the lead. It was a really nice goal as well as Jacobs opted against a more difficult pass into Dicko on the right, instead choosing to keep the ball which was then moved across to the left flank. Jack Price played a slide rule pass into Sako in the left hand channel, who flicked the ball out to Scott Golbourne on the overlap. Golbourne did really well twice, firstly to ride the tackle and then stop the ball going out for a goal kick, and instead clip a ball to the centre of goal. It went just over Dicko, but was met very well by Michael Jacobs, with a powerful header into the corner. Jacobs' heading abilities have perhaps gone a little un-noticed since he signed, but that is his second well-taken header for the club. Having a midfield runner who can head the ball can be a huge advantage. Given the way Jacobs attacks the ball from deep, he can be difficult to pick up and if those two headers aren't exceptions to the rule, we should be looking for ways to exploit it. 

- The second half had a really scrappy start, but Wolves put the game to bed early on. Richard Stearman, who actually had a fine game, won the ball in his own half, and went on one of those forward runs that he likes. When his nose started to bleed as he approached the Notts County goal, he laid the ball off to Michael Jacobs, around 25 yards from goal. Jacobs hit a low, side footed effort that bounced in off the goalkeeper’s post. Just a couple of minutes later, I heard a Radio 5 live commentator say that the ‘ball apologised before going in’, and that about summed this effort up. I’m not sure whether it was deflected, or whether Jacobs gave Bartosz Bialkowski the eyes, but I suspect the Polish goalkeeper will be disappointed not to have got closer to it. Incidentally, James Henry had a similar effort in the first half, trying to fool the keeper by switching his effort to the far post, but only hit a weak attempt.

- Just before Jacobs doubled the lead, Nouha Dicko had missed a sitter. Once again, a Wolves winger was released down the flank; this time Jack Price lofted a ball to Bakary Sako, who was clear down the left wing. He played in a low cross to find Dicko in the penalty area, about 10 yards. In Dicko’s defence, maybe the ball was slightly behind him, but he really should have done better than weakly squirming the ball wide of the far post. Sako and Dicko linked again just a few minutes later; this time it was a deeper Sako ball, not unlike his assist for Leigh Griffiths’ goal against Sheffield United, but Dicko could only fire straight at the keeper, when maybe a cut back to the onrushing James Henry was a better option. Henry did have a chance himself to score when Sako sent him through on goal in a similar position to his goal against Stevenage, but this time he didn’t quite get his angles right and Bialkowski was able to save.

- A quick note on Notts County – they played a fairly standard 4-4-2 formation that looked to get the ball into the strikers quickly. Upfront, Wolves target Callum McGregor played slightly deeper than James Spencer. McGregor had a decent game, almost sending Spencer through on goal at one point, but Ikeme was alert to the danger and cleared. Unfortunately, the one McGregor moment that most fans will remember was his missed chance at the end of a lovely Notts County move, sliding his effort wide of the far post when he should have done better. Notts County’s best player was the on loan Jack Grealish, a player of whom big thinks are expected at his parent club Aston Villa. He played on the left wing, and despite clearly being right footed, didn’t spend the entire game trying to cut inside. Instead, he looked to take Sam Ricketts down the outside and then pull the ball back. I think today may well have been Ricketts’ toughest game in a Wolves shirt. In the second half, Jamal Campbell-Ryce had far more of an effect on the game, to the extent that I had to double check he hadn’t been introduced as a substitute. He barely touched the ball in the first half, but caused a lot of problems in the second, creating a great chance with a whipped cross to the far post that was headed over.

- Something that I think Kenny Jackett needs to work on is his substitutions. I’m struggling to think of many occasions where he has made a substitution that has turned the game in our favour, and I was a little surprised that Lee Evans coming on for Bakary Sako was the only change today. We have eight games to play in March, and I’d have thought that Jackett would want to give as many players a rest now as he can. Surely, with us 2-0 up, it would have been an opportunity to give Jacobs and/or Henry a break. When we play this formation, it is reliant on Jacobs, Henry and Sako, with Evans the only other player who has looked anything other than awkward when playing in that band of three. With Zeli Ismail out on loan, we don’t have huge options, and if one of those three were to pick up a knock, we would struggle to replace them. In addition, Danny Batth has played every minute of every league game, McDonald has played every minute of the last nine, Sam Ricketts every minute of the last fourteen, Scott Golbourne every minute of the last six and Michael Jacobs every minute of the last nine. March may well make or break our season, and we will need every player to be as fresh as possible for it.

- I said before the match that this was our strongest eleven, but it wasn’t the best performance we’ve given this season. In the second half, we were happy to sit back and look to pick them on the counter attack, and had some of our decision-making been better, we could have put the game out of sight. But we really aren’t the finished article yet – it frustrating as hell when we move the ball, but the players don’t follow it. Quite often, we switch the ball well to the free man on the other flank, normally Golbourne or Ricketts, but then don’t get anyone over to support them. Watch how often our fullbacks get the ball in acres of space, but with no support from our players. I also think our forward players can be more intelligent with their runs. A couple of times today, Dicko dropped off, coming towards the ball, and it was crying out for someone to move into the space that had been vacated, but no-one did. This is our best front-4, but I think they still need work to improve the synergy between them.