In saying that, I am not blaming the team and manager entirely for what happened last night - in some respects it was down to sheer bad luck. For a start, the fact that the wind was at it's strongest in those opening minutes surely played a part in Wolves going two up so early on (it was definitely a factor in Heaton's poor kick which led to the first goal) and then to lose our two best players in recent games to injury just proved that it wasn't going to be our day - I thought McCormack was far and away our best player on the night and I just hope his injury was caught early enough for him not to be out too long (he'll miss out on a probable start for Scotland against Argentina if he is).
Having got that out of the way though, Wolves didn't have to be very good to beat us last night. Too many of our players who have been doing well in recent matches performed poorly;-
1. The gusty wind cannot completely excuse a woeful kicking performance from Heaton (what on earth possessed him to roll the ball out to McPhail two and a half minutes into added time?)
2. The usually reliable Roger Johnson had probably as poor a game as I have ever seen him play in a City shirt.
3. Darren Purse's decision to stand around appealling for offside in the build up to the second goal looked as if it was born out of the knowledge that he had no hope of catching Ebanks-Blake once he had got clear - whatever, it summed up an uncertain performance from our skipper.
Add to that the fact that the midfield, which has hardly been firing on all cylinders lately, had another poor night and it seems to me that we got what we deserved last night.
As for one particular member of our midfield, I have to wonder if Steve McPhail is fit enough to play. I can remember the radio commentator at the Forest match saying that he felt an injury was affecting his mobility and that is the impression I have got in our two home games this week - McPhail is never the quickest of players, but he appears even slower than normal lately.
Our football last night was too frantic as far as I was concerned. We did come back into the game after conceding those two goals, but all we did was huff and puff away with too much long ball stuff and, McCormack's excellently worked goal apart, there never looked like being an end product. To prove that point, I was interested in seeing how good the keeper who had been keeping Wayne Hennessey out was, but, to be honest, I am still none the wiser as to how good or bad Carl Ikeme is!
Given his injury, even the major plus of last night (McCormack's display) has a bitter sweet taste to it, but, trying to be positive, I would say that Whittingham did well in the first half before fading after the break and Eddie Johnson won some decent headers when he came on. It was a shame that Paul Parry was too slow to react to them, but I suppose that's understandable given that they had not played together up front before last night - given the injuries to McCormack and Bothroyd and our inaction in the loan market, I fear they will have more opportunities to form some sort of partnership in the coming weeks!