Wolves Unlucky As Foxes' Tails Are Up

Leicester City 2-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers

(Knockaert 24, Nugent 73, Sako 51)

Knockaert gives The Foxes the lead

Wolves again fell to a defeat tonight, but they ran Leicester Ciy close in an entertaining clash at the King Power Stadium. Dean Saunders took the step of going with a 4-5-1 formation in an attempt to counter Leicester's bright attacking play. But it never really proved successful as The Foxes dominated from the first minute. In particular the French winger Anthony Knockaert, who gave Ward a torrid 45 minutes - the Irish fullback heavily exposed by Sako's constant lack of tracking back. But that does not, under any circumstances, excuse Ward's horrific backing off. Time after time he allowed Knockaert to trot into the penalty area with the ball and get shots or crosses away. The warning signs were there in the 3rd minute as it took a last ditch Danny Batth tackle to deny the tricky winger. But Wolves weren't so fortunate 20 minutes later. After sustained pressure from Leicester - despite a lot of shots coming from range - Wolves were hit on the counter by an incredible ball from Schmeichel to Knockaert, who brought it down with his shoulder. Ward caught up with him but then backed further and further away, allowing the Frenchman to wriggle into the area and shoot. Ikeme got a hand to it and, much like at the weekend, should've kept the ball out but it found its way to the top corner instead. Things could've been worse for Wolves when Sako blatantly pushed Knockaert in the back but, amazingly, a penalty wasn't given. Then Karl Henry lunged in on Andy King and escaped with only a free-kick against him. Amazing when, seeing the replays, he could easily have broken the Leicester midfielder's leg. He may well find himself on the end of a retrospective FA ban now - not that that would be a bad thing on his current form. Leicester could've extended their lead through Nugent and Marshall, but the missed the target. Ironically, however, Wolves weren't too bad going forward at times - their best chances coming from set-pieces. Sigurdarson twice came close (and probably should've scored) while Sako and Ebanks-Blake both had opportunities to test Schmeichel.

Nugent scores as Leicester regain the advantage

Whatever Dean Saunders said to his Wolves players at half-time did the trick as the Old Gold came out with a lot more fighting spirit in the second-half. We pressed Leicester higher up the pitch, and we looked to work the ball forward at times, rather than the constant hoofing it of the first-half. But we still looked like we were lacking that killer touch - until Bakary Sako picked up a bouncing ball 30 yards from goal. It sat up perfectly for the winger who - with his weaker right foot - sent a truly beautiful strike into the bottom corner. Suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, Wolves were level. Their tails were up and they were all over Leicester, looking really dangerous breaking forward. Sako was picking up little pockets of space - he looks really impressive in the 'hole' just behind the striker - while Leicester were beginning to get troubled by our crosses into the box. But our same problems cost us again as Karl Henry broke forward, before not shooting and not even passing to the options he had available. Instead he ran backwards with the ball, before giving the ball to O'Hara who crossed it in. It was headed clear and for some reason, whilst Leicester sprinted forward, we merely jogged back. The pace of Dyer and Nugent left Danny Batth facing a 2-on-1 and Nugent had no trouble slotting home. Despite being 2-1 down, we tried to push forward and Ebanks-Blake missed 2 golden opportunities right at the death - first inexplicably missing a header from 6 yards out, then stabbing the ball against the outside of the post, also from 6 yards out. It summed up Wolves' night and meant they missed out on a point they would've richly deserved.

This damning image doesn't do Foley any favours

As it's Deadline Day, I could go into various transfer rants. But I'm going to save that for another blog. Instead I'm going to show exactly what tonight's game has highlighted - we're in desperate need of a left-back. Stephen Ward is just not good enough, but he knows there's nobody to come in and take his place. Likewise, in midfield, Karl Henry has really looked out of sorts of late and perhaps need a spell out of the team. I would love to see young David Davis put in - as again tonight off the bench he showed some real touches of class and a cool head. The second-half was much better than we've seen from Wolves in a long time, but still we lacked a real killer instinct. Goals change games and we simply didn't take our chances when they came. If we can take that second-half performance, spread it over 90 minutes and add a bit of a finishing ability to it, we should be ok. Too often this season we've dominated games, but can't finish teams off and can't defend - that is the recipe for relegation. The most sickening point for is, watching the 2nd Leicester goal, people like Henry, Foley and O'Hara are just jogging back whilst Nugent and Dyer break. There's no urgency, no desire and nobody busting a gut to help out the exposed Danny Batth. To see players just not caring like that is truly heartbreaking and just not at all acceptable. The images I've posted alongside this paragraph show just how easily that 2nd goal could've been stopped had players done their job correctly. It just goes to show - one or two slight mistakes and the entire team can suffer.

We find ourselves 5 points from the relegation zone - and if results go against us at the weekend, that gap will be down to just 2 points. The bottom 3 is becoming far too close for comfort and I'm really concerned as to what the next few games will bring to our fortunes.

My Wolves MOTM: Danny Batth. Close one between him and Doumbia, but Batth pips it for me given that it was his first League start for Wolves and he impressed so much. Looked composed in his distribution, and got in some vital early blocks. Was left exposed and helpless for the winning goal, but a solid start for the youngster.

Wolves In A Word: Encouraging