2-0 and game over

By Tom Bason
October 16 2011

Wolves today slipped to defeat against Black Country rivals West Bromwich Albion. Goals from Chris Brunt and substitute Peter Odemwingie gave the Baggies the points.

I was just walking up to the Hawthorns when I heard the lineup, and I was pleasantly surprised. Given the absence of Stephen Fletcher, it was exactly the team I would have picked. While I say I was happy with the lineup, I was slightly surprised by the way the midfield was formed. The best performance I've seen Nenad Milijas give was away at Stamford Bridge last season when we sat deep in midfield and controlled the play. He also has scored more goals when he's played in a deeper role as he can receive the ball facing goal, rather than having play behind him and be facing away from goal.

Thus, it was quite surprising to see Milijas in the advanced role, and Jamie O'Hara sitting deep alongside Karl Henry. I'm still not 100% sure what to make of O'Hara; he's very much an old fashioned box to box midfielder, the sort of player that is dying out. He doesn't have the inspiration to play in the advanced role, nor the discipline to play deeper. I would have liked to have seen him given the job to support Kevin Doyle today, where he could use his energy to go beyond the Irish striker, something Milijas is never going to do.

However, the midfield was not the problem today, the defence was. While Stephen Ward was probably man of the match, the rest of the defence disappointed. Captain Roger Johnson never got to grips with the pace of Shane Long, and was perhaps fortunate to avoid being penalised for a challenge on Long that would have seen the Irish striker clear on goal. Johnson appears to be a very languid player, never rushed, but today that was a problem. He was at times slow to react to danger, while ability to keep possession has to be questioned.

It was clear that we were most at risk down our right flank, where Johnson was patrolling alongside right back Richard Stearman. Stearman clearly isn't a natural fullback, although fans have to remember that he is third choice there. It will be of no surprise to anyone if Ronald Zubar is restored for the visit of Swansea next week. Alongside Johnson, Christophe Berra did not do too badly and generally dealt with Long more effectively than Johnson managed.

In fact, I would almost go as far as to say that the defenders, especially the central ones were the main difference between the teams. Gareth McCauley was deservedly given man of the match while Jonas Olson headed away everything that was thrown at him. Apart from these, I'd say that the two teams were reasonably evenly matched, and this was shown in the way the match went. We were not outplayed today, we forced Ben Foster into a couple of fine saves and our build up play was reasonably good. Unfortunately, neither Adam Hammill nor Matt Jarvis were having their best matches in terms of delivery and we wasted a lot of potentially promising situations with poor balls into the box.

Today's defeat won't define our season, but it does increase our number of games without a win. Next week we have Swansea at home, and that is a game we cannot afford to lose