A 15th minute Rosa goal following sustained pressure and a highly dubious 54th minute penalty by the livewire Kenny Miller killed off the Bluebirds.
At the business end of the season, we're struggling instead of showing any sign of making a serious play-off challenge. Excellent at home, results-wise anyway, with 5 wins and a draw in the last 6, the last two home wins have been wholly unconvincing and not without great luck. Away however, it's now 7 defeats in 10 awaydays and a solitary point from the last 12 available. Significantly, this was our third successive defeat to play-off rivals in five weeks following losses at Crystal Palace and Watford. Play-offs now look highly remote but performing like this, do we even deserve to be regarded as play-off contenders?
The team are not playing well at all, the players themselves acknowledge that and I'm afraid the story is becoming all too familiar. At Wolves, Cardiff were comprehensively beaten in all areas. Truthfully, we were battered - in more ways than one! On the park, City only competed for a 25 minute spell before half-time.
The Bluebirds managed two half-hearted attempts on goal in the entire 90 minutes. Midfield, once more, were anonymous and overrun, Wolves opponents marshalled by the excellent veteran that is Paul Ince able run at us, around us and past us almost at will. Our passing and movement is poor and so ineffective at present, we couldn't live with Wolves.
It leaves Jerome and Thompson isolated but, even so, Steven Thompson is struggling badly out there for City. For the fourth successive game, if there is a man of the match for us, it can only be goalkeeper Neil Alexander who along with his defence are being badly overworked. A combo of his saves, desperate defending by those in front of him and poor Wolves finishing prevented a worse outcome.
However, this game was a throwback, much of the talk will be about terrible half-time incidents and a 15 minute delay to the restart following a heavy handed over the top reaction and indiscriminate activities from some West Midlands Police towards City fans, a number of whom admittedly triggered the events. We're back in the news for the wrong reasons, it was completely unnecessary and leaves you feeling many emotions with anger and dismay being very high. Two seasons away with Cardiff City and the only trouble we have is at Wolves. Both times, decisions and attitude by some police seemed to be more than culpable towards that.
Back to the footy first, this was a game between 7th (Wolves) and 8th (us) both within touching distance of the play-offs. A must-win for both sides, certainly a can't lose. Along with Mike Morris, I decided to travel by train instead of joining the boys on the coach.
With Wolves police declining requests to meet City supporters officials pre-game and then announcing that not only were they not providing a designated away fan drinking pub(s) pre-game but that no Cardiff followers would be welcomed in any Wolverhampton pub, it seemed far more sensible to be flexible. However it also felt unfair that City fans were those ones being punished for last year's problems caused in large part by Wolves fans being allowed to congregate outside the way end to ambush City fans leaving the game. That shouldn't have been allowed to happen.
The train decision proved wise. We made our way to Birmingham en-route, stopped in Birmingham, had lunch and a good drink, then cruised into Wolverhampton, straight into the ground and had a gentle pre-game drink. Meanwhile, those who came by coach arrived disgruntled. Having stopped before Wolverhampton pre-game and arriving at the ground in good time, they were made to stay on the coaches outside Molineux until 2:45pm, the Lansdowne coach who I regularly travel with apparently had the boys sitting there for over 20 minutes. Why do that to us?
Molineux is a fair ground. Reasonably big stands. Bizarrely, the two pitch length stands are curved in design. I can only remember Wolves got in a huge mess over this 20 years ago, not all the factors. Possibly they meant to build a bowl arena but it is strange to have seats in the centre of the ground a little further away from the pitch itself than those in the wings.
City fans occupied the lower tier of one of the pitchside stands, our 1,250 or so followers occupying all bar sectioned off end blocks. Hospitality boxes were behind us, with an upper grandstand and Wolves supporters above them. The crowd was just shy of 24,000.
Dave Jones and City have enjoyed good fortune with injuries this term. Kevin Cooper was available again to visit his previous club and with nobody suspended, only Paul Parry was absent as he has been for several weeks but this season, he has disappointed and fallen some way down the pecking order.
We could all have named DJ's side for this one. Alexander, Ardley-Purse-Cox-Barker, Ledley-Whitley-Scimeca-Koumas, Thompson-Jerome. On the bench today were Margetson-Cooper-Loovens-Nsungu-Weston. Captain Pursey was making his 400th appearance, that milestone will mean more to him than this game.
Wolves started the season very well but have struggled and been outside the play-off zone running neck and neck, or just behind City, in the battle of the also rans. They don't lose many under Glen Hoddle but have far too many draws. Going into this game, Hoddle's Wolves had only lost 12 of our 61 games in the Championship but an incredible 31 had ended with honours even.
They came into this match unbeaten in 6 but 3 were levelled including the last two games. The previous match saw them booed off after a tame 0-0 midweek home result with Stoke which produced moans over whether Hoddle should be considering his future. Home form has not been great - 7 wins, 8 draws and 3 defeats before this one with only 19 goals scored in those 19 games - and that gave City hope. False hope.
With a squad 7 players stronger than City and greater depth and quality, Wanderers were unable to call on some regulars, no surprise to learn that included Darren "sicknote" Anderton but still fielded a formidable side. The lined up with Postma, Edwards-Lescott-Gyepes-Naylor, Ricketts-Ince-Rosa-Frankowski, Aliadiere-Miller.
Stefan Postma has rarely had a quieter day, David Blunkett could have been in goals for Wolves and kept a clean sheet. Rob Edwards is a Welsh international fringe player who was used against Paraguay last week, Julian Lescott is predicted for greater things and showed why several times with his powerful and assured play. Paul Ince was truly the Guv'nor in midfield but he was ably assisted by those around him including Hungarians Rosa and Gyepes (Denes Rosa would win any competition of a Lone Gunman lookalike), the excellent Rohan Ricketts and The Pole, Frankowski. Up front, City's defence were always going to be tested hard by Kenny Miller and Jeremie Aliaidare on loan from Arsenal.
The most important thing for City to do was quell Wolves for the first 15 minutes, If that was the plan, it really couldn't have gone more wrong. The home side were at us from the off, we were battling just to hang onto their shirt-tails and Neil Alexander was the busiest man on the park taking crosses, corners, making saves and taking goal kicks and other efforts went wide. City were under siege and looking quite helpless, Wolves fans loved it and were fully behind their boys.
There was good banter going on between the fans. Wolves doing the ultra-predictable sheep sh*ggers but finding themselves out-chanted at that by us. The just as predictable inflatable sheep was flying around but was encountered by "you've only got one sheep". One bald fat fan at the front of their stand was thrown out, came back after a warning and thrown out again for gesturing as he came back but then allowed back again.
Just as it was hoped City were riding the storm, we went behind. A clearance, a midfield challenge lost out (as just about all were), the ball was fed back to Aliadiare who used his pace and craft to get past and around Purse, slide the ball across the face of goal and the was THE LONE GUNMAN, sorry ROSA, at the far post to turn home from all of two feet.
City were up against it but showed their battling spirit by fighting back, in one case, too literally as Jason Koumas lunged into a two footed tackle on an opponent. He got a yellow card, a harder ref may have given a straight red. Koumas, like Purse and Scimeca, booed with most touches for being Baggies seemed to be leading a one man crusade. In trying to do it all by himself, it never came off. He scuffed one shot wide after a great run, put another over and then sent a free-kick wide too. The got some moans until someone shouted, "leave him alone, he's getting closer".
City were starting to pressure themselves and even won a flurry of corners. Steven Thompson wasted our best chance of the match when he rose unchallenged at the far post but headed directly into Postma's arms. A striker at this level has to do better than that, especially a Scottish international one. Cox met another corner but headed over a more difficult chance. Riccy Scimeca was given a great shooting opportunity but his poor recent form continued with a woeful effort. Had the police helicopter been up at that point, it would have needed to take evasive action to avoid that shot.
Neil Ardley had three or four excellent crossing opportunities but the normally reliable man wasted them all by placing them far too close to Postma. It wasn't good however to see him gather them all without any challenge. Wolves launched attacks too but the end product, fortunately, wasn't there.
Just before the interval, Joe Ledley did well to win the ball, the disappointing Jeff Whitley hit a 25 yarder which Postma got his body behind but it spun off and behind him, sadly with no great momentum so he was able to gather. Wolves were looking a little unsure of themselves at this point, very threatening going forward but not so clever when attacked but the difference was they ran at us and with pace whilst, Koumas expected, we tended to try and play around them and rely on floated crosses or set pieces.
Half-time: WOLVES 1 CITY 0
Then came the madness. It all started light-heartedly. There were a couple of refreshments kiosks under the stand but the largest one in the centre had been selling beer and lager pre-game. Come half-time, apparently on police advice as a "punishment" for the trouble caused last season (that's the trouble caused by us coming under attack outside our exits that doesn't/wouldn't happen elsewhere), no alcohol was on sale. There are conflicting accounts of whether this was communicated or not but most fans were totally unaware.
Whatever the arguments for and against, most of us are grown men, it's a long day out, we do travel a fair distance and we do enjoy a drink. And why not? The initial response was light-hearted with chants of "we want beer, we want beer" but you could soon gather that some really weren't happy about this. Some of us are wise, having been there, to know when to stand back, some aren't. The kiosk staff decided, or were instructed, to close the refreshment bar shutters. Some started banging on them, it did deteriorate.
Something that started mainly in humour had now got a little more serious. A lot of police and stewards were around and they were trying to calm things down. It seemed to be quelling. The flashpoint however occurred when at least 3 or 4 lines of riot police - an incredible number - moved in, one after another, with batons and sticks on show and turned a minor incident into a major one. I still cannot understand why they felt that necessary but in trying to "sort out" those causing trouble, they wrongly get everyone involved.
Some of the scenes I saw had me in disbelief. One copper was pushing a young boy, women were caught up in the charges, plenty of innocent bystanders were hit by indiscriminate lashing out of batons. Well away from the central incident, one guy, a well known messageboarder, was thrown into myself and a couple of others standing well away as if he was a human skittle by a huge copper trying to wade towards where the main problem was, totally unnecessary. Believe me, when that happens to you, you are
incensed. The macho copper came under abuse and wanted to fight us all.
Some of the police, I swear not, were revelling in it. They were laughing and joking amongst themselves, I saw it with my own eyes. Others showed a lot of concern and tried to help particularly towards several innocent bystanders who got separated from their mates and/or upset by being caught up in this.
Incidents were now sparking off inside the ground, nearly all as more police poured past fans and got into confrontation with those nothing to do with the incident. Some police tried to stop me getting back to my section of the stand and wanted to send me the other end. They were also doing this to fathers trying to get back to their children. They even drew sticks towards me as a threat. So I had to stay where all the trouble was. It was confused, it was unnecessary, it was ridiculous and, for a short time, it was out of control.
Neither side should be proud, happy and claim the higher ground about these events. The police can't solely blame Cardiff and Cardiff can't solely blame the police. Whatever the rights and wrongs, nothing in my view made it right for the police to affect so many innocent by-standers. This wasn't Cardiff and Wolves fans in confrontation, it was Cardiff fans banging on metal shutters and then in confrontation with WMP as a result.
The second-half was delayed for 15 minutes but I don't understand why. Problems has subsided. The second-half became irrelevant after all that to a certain degree and within 10 minutes it was game over anyway but in an unfair style. Frankowski got the ball in the box with his back to Neil Cox, he was touched went down and got a penalty. It never was that. KENNY MILLER, off to Celtic next season, finished all too easily. He went right, as improved as Neil Alexander is, nobody was in doubt that he would got the other way ... he did.
It finished 2-0 but only by good fortune as we were given a football lesson. Wolves played us off the park but our defending, Alexander's saves, misses and close shaves saw no further damage. Nsugnu and Weston had run-outs, it was all academic. We were shown that as far as we've come this season, we've still got a very long way to go.
Wolves jumped into the play-offs with that win, it could have been us, we've fallen to 8th. If we can put two or three wins together fast, we may be back challenging again but, in all honesty, we just don't look capable of it. We have a team of battlers who fight to the end and deserve immense respect for that but lack quality and this is the time of the season where both are required to succeed.
Steven Thompson needs a goal soon or taking out of the team but Nsungu doesn't seem to be the answer. Individually, Ledley, Koumas, Whitley and Koumas are good midfielder but, collectively, it ain't working. All are blow par recently as well. Defence have to be heroic but the balance doesn't look right particularly Ardley on the right and Barker on the left are being exposed.
Outside the ground, it wasn't easy either. Wolves fans in pockets were looking for trouble, thankfully it never happened. Train travellers were frog-marched to the station for their route home via Shrewsbury. Fortunately, we avoided all that but not before someone who appeared to be a local copper with a Midlands accent said to Mike, "hello Mr Moriis" and then to me, "Hiya Nige, what was the game like?" before mentioning that he was a lister, presumably a City fan. How bizarre. We had a good chat with some Wolves fan. The train route home via Brum was a quiet one, after that day and game, it was what we needed!
The Cost of Being A City Fan:
Ticket: £28
Trains: £28
Taxi: £ 4
Prog: £ 3 left on train - doh!
Food/drink: £25 - not cheap out with Mr Morris!
Total for game: £88
Total for season-to-date: £2,697.
Report from FootyMad
Dave Jones' return to Wolves turned into a nightmare as Denes Rosa and Kenny Miller combined to send play-off rivals Cardiff City crashing to defeat.
Cardiff boss Jones, back at Molineux for the first time since being sacked in November 2004, cut a frustrated figure on the touchline as his side were outplayed for long spells.
Rosa and Miller struck in each half to fire Wolves into sixth place – for the first time since New Year's Day – replacing Preston who could only draw at Brighton.
Jones could have no complaints with Cardiff's first defeat in four away games as Wolves thoroughly deserved their fourth win in the last six matches.
Apart from a spell in the final 20 minutes of the first half, Wolves were dominant with Rosa's first goal for the club after his January arrival from Ferencvaros and Miller's second-half penalty sealing their success.
The only downside to the game was that the start of the second half was delayed by 15 minutes following crowd problems involving the Cardiff fans in the Steve Bull stand.
Wolves controlled the opening exchanges and it was no surprise when Rosa gave them the lead.
Paul Ince tested Cardiff's goalkeeper Neil Alexander from long range before Jeremie Aliadiere fired wide.
Aliadiere then turned provider with a low left-wing cross that was turned home at the far post by Hungarian international midfielder Rosa in the 15th minute to give Wolves a deserved lead.
Cardiff would have slipped further behind five minutes later only for Aliadiere to be denied by a smart save from Alexander.
That let-off sparked Cardiff into life with the impressive Jason Koumas driving City on.
Koumas, who was lucky not to be sent off for his 22nd minute lunge on Rosa, and Neal Ardley both went close before Steven Thompson fired his header straight at Stefan Postma.
Postma did his best to gift Cardiff an equaliser on the stroke of half-time as he spilled a shot from Jeff Whitley but just about grabbed it back before the ball rolled over the line.
The delay in starting the second half took the wind out of Cardiff's sails and Wolves effectively clinched their win eight minutes after the re-start through Miller's spot-kick.
Poland striker Tomasz Frankowski was sent tumbling to the floor by a push in the back from Neil Cox and Miller sent Alexander the wrong way from the resulting penalty.
External reports
Wales On Sunday
Western Mail
Birmingham Mail