We know that cheating is part of the game but it was a sickening blow on Saturday when Wolves were undone by a blatant dive and consummate piece of gamesmanship by a second rate Scottish has-been at the awful new Leicester ground.
I was along the line of the play when Dickov spun Naylor but he certainly didn’t need an invitation to find where the floor was. At first I thought he must have feinted, as the way he went down he surely must have lost consciousness to fall like that.
But no, a good old Premiership referee, Mike Riley, made sure that he got his 10.0 dive cards out and awarded the penalty.
Riley must have later realised his mistake, as eventually he had to book the Scottish midget for persistent diving when under challenge from Lescott but the damage was done.
6 minutes gone and 1-0 down was the nightmare start but after that a pretty dire match failed to provide any more goals.
The rest of the game was very even with no team having any idea how to score.
Wolves seemed to think that we could pump the ball over Elliott and Taggart to get round them. Well even my Nan could have told you that would never work. Solid they are and Blake and once again disappointing Deano failed to get any purchase from them.
Fortunately Newton disappeared once again and the industrious Cooper did what he could but oh how much would we give for Kennedy and Cameron to return a.s.a.p.
The defence did look solid for once.
Murray was once again commanding in his area and must keep the No.1 jersey for the rest of the season. Perhaps we can make a few quid and sell Oakes now?
The best chance of the game came when Walker, another reject from a better team, tried to be clever with a back pass and had to resort to diving, a common Leicester tactic, onto the ball to prevent Deano pouncing on his lack of footwork skills.
However, for some unknown reason Naylor was the one who took the chance.
Now don’t get me wrong if we had wanted the ball in the car park then Naylor is your man but from 7 yards out we needed someone to dink it head high to at least catch a stray hand or get the goal. As it was Naylor blasted the shot straight into the most compact part of the wall and that was it – a defeat.
Lescott had a last chance to snatch a draw but his shot was well saved at the near post by the keeper with the girl’s haircut.
Disappointing overall.
Ince doesn’t look good enough (or perhaps interested enough) to me at this level.
Rae was busy but doesn’t have that killer pass to unlock a defence like Leicester’s and the wing play was woeful.
Irwin was tetchy, Naylor was well Naylor, Butler did well as did Jo and Matt is a major plus.
However, I think the patchy form is going to continue until Cameron returns as none of the midfielders have the ability to thread a great ball or to make that blindside run.
I also feel that we need Kennedy back as soon as possible. However, there will be a great burden on him to immediately return to form By the time he returns we will be 15-20 games through the season and probably 15-20 points behind automatic promotion. This might be too much to pull back in the games that remain.
As for the ground..
The new Leicester ground was very poor for visiting fans.
Very little space between the turnstile and the inside wall, toilets to accommodate 20 men at one time and dangerously narrow spiral stairwells to the seating areas.
As well over-zealous stewarding and record number of police, one for each away fan by the looks of it – a reversal to the bad old days of football, just made me appreciate the Molineux even more.
The best thing about the day? Driving out of Leicester and leaving the place behind.
E-mail me with any comments/feedback to: dave@wolves-mad.co.uk