Match Details

Cooke (off 71)

Weller (off 76)

Reports

Wolves 1 - 0 Burnley Sedgely 74

First of all, can I say that regardless of its somewhat questionable aesthetics, Molineux was a welcome change from the likes of Bloomfield Road. On a mainly dry and slightly misty afternoon the Clarets lined up as:

Crichton

Weller Thomas Davis Cox Briscoe

Little Ball Cook

Gray Cooke

Subs: Mullin (Cooke 71), Payton (Weller 76), Branch (Gray 57) Not used: Mellon, Armstrong

Stan proved that he's his own and Gareth Kay's boss by fielding a suspiciously similar 11 to that which started midweek. Because I made the stupid mistake of paying attention to TeamTalk I was unaware that we'd signed Nikolaos Mihopoulos on loan, but he didn't make it to the bench, so no goalkeeping cover.

FIRST HALF

The first half was a tight affair with only one clear chance for either side. Although Wolves probably shaded the midfield in terms of possession, they failed to find any decent service for their front two. Taylor and Ketsbaia had a pretty frustrating time and were well-marked nearly all game, the latter dropping of into midfield where he was either chased by Cox or picked up by Cook or Ball. Cook though had a bit of a stinker, frequently playing badly-considered passes and losing the ball when what Burnley really needed was to keep possession.

Down the flanks, Weller had his hands full against the sharp Lee Naylor and Andy Sinton. Sinton got Weller booked early on, an event which set the pattern for the match as referee Jones, to say the least, had a questionable tendency to support the home side in any case of doubt (and some even clear-cut ones).

Burnley's best chance came from a Paul Cook inswinging cross which flew past the heads of both Thomas and Weller at the far post when both looked odds-on to score. At the other end there was a free header after the Burnley defence failed to clear, which really should have been put away. Cooke and Gray though didn't really threaten, although Cooke wriggled away from his marker once but then dribbled in a pretty tame shot. There was another booking, this time for Cooke, as he challenged the goalkeeper (50-50 ball and goalscoring chance) but the Wolves over-reaction made it look far worse than it was. Although Cooke didn't retaliate as a Wolves player rushed towards him and try to bundle him over, he was still the only player to be booked.

Still, we rarely looked in any great trouble, despite not firing on all cylinders. As the teams went in for half-time serenaded by the home fans' boos, it was looking rosy.

SECOND HALF

Wolves brought on Ndah and switched to 3-5-2. This improved their threat from the left wing marginally, and from then on they had the better chances. The Clarets' attack lost its way, even with Gray making way for Branch, and play opened up completely in the midfield as Wolves went for a winner.

The goal, when it came, was a bit of a shambles. Burnley had been attacking and with both Cox and Thomas (?) going for the same header, the ball sheared out wide for Darren Bazeley. He delivered a cross which was headed against the foot of the post by Ndah, the ricochet eventually found its way to Ketsbaia who squared the ball for SEDGLEY, who despite doing his best to miss by firing it at a defender's legs, saw the ball bounce into the net.

So that was a big hole in the gameplan. Payts came on and immediately transformed the attack, but then failed to convert Burnley's best chance of the game. A beatiful moved which saw the ball worked out from the right of defence, across the centre of midfield and out to Briscoe, who landed the ball on Andy's head six yards out, only to see Oakes dig the header out from low at the far post.

The referee still managed to lower his reputation further by denying penalty claims on Payton (dubious) and the magisterial Glen Little (blatant). Then with just a couple of minutes to go, Payton waltzed through on the touchline and fired across a sizzler. John Mullin met the oncoming drive with his forehead but couldn't keep the ball down and 2,800 Burnley fans went home disappointed.

THOUGHTS

Eleventh in the table after three games is better than I had expected, but there are some warning signs from yesterday's game. Firstly as an aside, the standard of refereeing is little better in the First than the Second divisions and we can expect some real stinkers as the cleverness of your average opposition player outstrips that of the officials.

What worries me more is that the lack of strength in depth of our squad was exposed slightly. Cooke and Gray struggled up front and although we have one good replacement, if more than one player misfires we're in trouble. Payton and Gray also look a bit too similar to play alongside each other. In the same vein, we didn't have a direct replacement to Paul Cook who really had quite a poor match in patches yesterday (maybe he thought he was still with Wolves).

My other concern is that although we didn't really deserve to lose this match, we must start to pick up points in such games because in the second half of the season the rest of the division starts to suss out your gameplans and adapts accordingly (the Cambridge United effect, as John Beck can testify to). With the inevitable injury crises and poor runs we're bound to get, any extra points in the early part of the season are a boon.

Still, 3 games gone, one win one draw one defeat, mid-table, and all to play for!

UTC

Steve

BANK HOLIDAY WEEKENDER

After looking forward immensely to the two weekend games following the Clarets excellent start to the season, I am left feeling disappointed with Burnley's results, performances and their overall approach to these two games.

As I indicated in my preview I felt Wolves were definitely there for the taking. With the familiar hulking figure of Thetis lining up (on loan from Ipswich), introducing himself and sorting out where he was going to play with his newly acquainted colleagues, one of whom was a Wolves youth product thrown in because of injuries and lack of players, there had to be opportunities to exploit the Wolves' rearguard lack of familiarity. The only thing that could prevent this was ineptitude on Burnley's part or a committed attacking display on Wolves part to compensate.

Those who were there can draw their own conclusions. Both sides started tentatively, the home side on the back of a home defeat to Oxford United currently in the bottom of Division Two. Wolves problem apparently was failure to convert chances, however with the sad lumbering Fat Bob Taylor up front and the somewhat mercurial Ketsbaia partnering him, added to the rock solid look of the Clarets rearguard, their main problem against Burnley was creating ANY chances. The closest they came until they scored was when Coxy sliced a clearance for a corner nearly catching Crichton out in the first minute.

Meanwhile with Cooke looking very confident and Gray performing an excellent job at holding up the ball for the midfield to join up, the Clarets appeared to be gaining momentum as an attacking force.

For a detailed Claret match view read Firmo's effort on the London Clarets site.

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/2593/0001wva1.htm

I don't concur with Firm's report above that we created few chances in the 1st half as I can remember two long range shots from Cooke and Little. Indeed very early on Glen forced Thetis into conceding possession and combined with Cooke in the box only former Glen to give Andy a poor return ball when a half decent pass would have set him up for a close range pop at goal. Added to a couple of dangerous crosses which fizzed across the box which just needed a nudge in, I felt that we looked marginally the better side. However one has to say that Wolves looked dis-jointed and gave the ball away a surprising amount of times. They look to be held together in the middle by the tall balding figure of Emblem on a number of occasions.

I viewed the second half with the usual mixed feelings, surely Wolves can't be that bad in the second half, however my pecker was up thanks to the Clarets fairly promising performance. The second half soon provided the answers with neither side starting at all well. Wolves had taken off the anonymous Sinton, who had allowed Weller acres of space, which frankly he failed to make much use of. However soon Stan began his own mysterious sequence of substitutions. Firstly he took off Gray for Branch and later on Cooke for Mullin. Myself I thought Cooke looked the forward most likely to score in the first half and Gray had done nothing wrong, whilst in midfield Cook had given the ball away quite a lot and Ball seemed to do very little except protect the back three.

In effect Stan took off two forwards and replaced them with two attacking midfielders, playing loosely up front. Wolves so far had shown little real threat, and a bolder manager than Stan might have gone for the jugular by bring on the Guvnor early doors. Instead the result was Burnley lost their way up front and struggled to maintain possession let alone construct any threatening moves. Nevertheless a point looked comfortably in the bag until..........

The unlikely happened when yet another Burnley move petered out when Cook lobbed another percentage ball for a forward to chase resulting in the Wolves goalie gaining possession. A swift thrust down the Clarets left resulted in a cross and backpost downward header which I thought Crichton saved. The ball fell kindly and whacked back, pinballing through a ruck of players to Sedgely whose well struck shot hit a defender on the line but still went in. Their first effort on target.

OK it was a scrambled goal but at least Wolves had shown some ambition with a midfield player getting forward into the opposition box.

Stan immediately threw on Payton who hadn't even warmed up, with 15 minutes to save the day. The impact of Payton was almost immediate when he found himself on the end of a Cook (?) cross and headed towards goal, our first effort on target. Payton single handed fashioned an opening for Mullin when his turn and pace were too quick for the Wolves defence. Even on this fifteen minute cameo Payton was easily the best forward on view.

Disappointment was the overwhelming feeling at the final whistle, and personally I was perplexed as to why our leading scorer, a man fresh from scoring a hat trick in half an hour in midweek was left kicking his heels for so long in a match that was there to be won. It seemed to me that Stan's cautious approach cost at least one point, however in mitigation Wolves created a couple of good chances when the Clarets inevitably had to get forward and equalise. However Burnley could have added sharpness up front by playing Payton without losing and tightness at the back, indeed Andy closes down defenders alot more than Gray.

Igor

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