By Matt Lond & J Bateman
February 26 2003

Wolves blew there chance to gain distance from other playoff hopefuls by being held by a defensive minded Watford side.

Wolves  0-0  Watford  Att: 24,591

Wolverhampton Wanderers were left ruing the chance to increase the gap on one of their play-off rivals by being held to a goalless draw by Watford. 

Wolves dominated the game at Molineux but failed to convert their superiority into three points. 

Veteran keeper Alec Chamberlain kept Watford in a game they could have lost by the interval with three wonderful first-half saves. 

He was almost beaten inside the opening 60 seconds by a Colin Cameron effort which was heading for the corner of the net until the keeper diverted the ball past the post with a full-length save. 

The chance was served as a warning to the Watford defence but they were fortunate to escape again in the 13th minute. 

When Wolves broke quickly and Cameron, with time and space on the edge of the box, brought another fantastic parry out of Chamberlain with a rising shot. 

The hosts were given a scare shortly after, however, when midfielder Allan Nielsen was left unmarked inside the box to force an alert block from Matt Murray in the Wolves goal, despite that rare chance they had to defend more when Chamberlain produced a third good stop to deny George Ndah before Alex Rae lifted an ambitious 25-yard strike into the crowd. 

The relentless pressure saw Paul Ince, who later went off injured, head a dangerous Denis Irwin cross wide of the post. 

Striker Adam Proudlock arrival for the home side raised their game and almost immediately, Paul Butler lifted a close range header over the bar and Kenny Miller also missed the target with a 62nd-minute volley. 

A low parry from Murray kept out Paulo Vernazza at the other end, but the home crowd knew victory was eluding their side when a fabulous shot from Mark Kennedy curled the wrong side of the post and the game ended up as a scoreless draw.

Report Courtesy Of Matt Lond