Did the second half-

[abbobrom]

Did the Wolves second half performance last night do more harm than good? After a comfortable first half performance, despite the rough house treatment from Blues, Wolves seemed to be a shadow of the team that we have seen this season.

Ok, we kept another clean sheet, and I don't recall Ruddy having a shot to save. However, I wonder how many other coaches will have seen the tactics that Birmingham adopted and try the heavy physical approach.

We lost Saiss through injury, but we could easily have lost Jota for the season, and he was clearly a target. Credit him with fair self control, because you could not blame him if he took the law into his own hands and offered some retrobution.
He suffered similar treatment against Bolton, while many of the Championship so called hardmen, will be forming a queue.

The referees need to step up to the plate and clamp down on these thugs. During the TV comentry last evening, mention was made that when Premiership refs move down to the Championship they are more lenient with the physicallity of the game. There is no doubt in my mind that Roberts would have been having an early bath had his assult on Jota taken place in the prem.

Sunderland arrive at Molineux on Saturday, desperate for a result, so lets hope that we get a game of football and not a clog fest.

[wolves71]

It's not the first time and won't be the last time this season that Wolves face tactics like what Blues did last night, Cardiff and Preston spring to mind. Sides that are in Wolves faces and stop us from playing will be seen a few more times until the end of the season. Ruddy didn't have to make a save. Blues after the introduction of Stephen Gleeson tried to come at Wolves, but as with the Matchday thread, they never looked like scoring.

Injuries are part of the game and so are late challenges, Wolves aren't angels now or in the past. A game of two halves is mentioned quite offered in football, Wolves looked comfortable in the first, but we got deeper, sloppy passing and invited pressure in the second.