Posted by Alf Uckem wolves report:- The film on the coach on the way up was "The Green Mile", in which Tom Hanks plays a sensitive prison governor in charge of a death row in 1930's America. At times it feels like we- as Wolves fans- are on death row, waiting for the inevitable to happen and experiencing a multitude of emotions which we can't understand or control. Things didn't get much better. Wolves kicked off with the same team which had drawn 1-1 at Millwall on Saturday: Murray, Irwin, Lescott, Clyde, Edworthy, Kennedy, Rae, Ince (c), Cooper, Cole and Sturridge with Andrews (?), Oakes, Butler, N'dah and Miller making up the bench. Right from the off it was a scrappy affair. Burnley got in amongst Wolves and prevented us from playing. Their physical approach ruffled our pampered feathers and the ball rarely found its way to our wings (gegeddit? feathers...wings...hmmm) What's more, when Burnley had the ball, they looked incisive (certainly in compraison with us) and with Gareth Taylor's height and Robbie Blake's movement up-front, they were causing us problems. Taylor repeatedly won aerial battles and got a couple of headers on target- although neither put Murray under any undue trouble. The first real chance of the game came against the run of play though. A neat through ball from Rae was latched onto by Carlton Cole, who'd beaten Burnley 'keeper Beresford to the ball. Trying to chip the retreating Beresford, Cole succeeded only in lifting the ball into the grateful keeper's arms. Burnley heeded the warning though, and got much tighter at the back, whilst looking all the more likely to score themselves. That they did on 24 minutes came as no real surprise. With Lescott dragged out of position to fill in for Edworthy, Gareth Taylor had no problem meeting Robbie Blake's excellent cross and powered his header home past Matt Murray to give the home side the lead. Wolves' heads dropped and there was no real response to the goal. Just six minutes later and our defence was caught napping- playing to the whistle after a foul when the referee allowed play-on. Dean West seized upon the space this afforded him to shoot from distance. The ball appeared to be heading straight for Murray's arms until a wicked deflection saw the young keeper horribly wrong-footed and helpless to watch as the ball flew past him at his near post. Wolves sprung into something which could perhaps be termed 'life' (though not as we know it, captain) after that and a series of corners ensued, with Marlon Beresford being in the right place at the right time to keep out a ricochet from a scramble. But it was Burnley who were left rueing a miss shortly before half time as Matt Murray made a strong block to deny Robbie Blake after the former Bradford man had run into the area and shot from an acute angle. The boos rang out amongst the Wolves fans as our team trudged dejectedly off at half-time. Jones must really have roasted them- and his post match comments would suggest that, for Wolves were much the stronger of the two sides in the second half- although Burnley's bizarre change of tactics (sit back and defend) helped us feel more comfortable. That we still never really looked like scoring against a team which had conceded 10 goals in its previous 2 games was, however, something of a problem- and with the news that Blake could be out for another month, is really rather worrying. The only change made at half time was the introduction of Butler for the injured Irwin who'd taken a heavy fall in the first half. It was with the introductions of Cameron (for Rae) and N'dah (for Cooper) that really kicked us into life. N'dah made a nusiance of himself and put across one wicked cross, only for there to be no-one to turn it in. . A nice move involving Kennedy, Cameron and Edworthy saw another excellent cross come in from the full-back (now operating on the left), but this evaded everyone and was eventually cleared. Mark Kennedy found the ball at his feet at an acute angle but executed a deliciously clever chip which was headed onto the bar then cleared by a Burnley defender. Mark Clyde had a reasonable long-range effort that flew wide and Wolves continued to enjoy most of the possesion, but Murray and Lescott both had to be alert on a couple of occasions to keep the Clarets' lead down to 2. With neither of our strikers looking capable of even getting a shot in- let alone scoring, that old pro Paul Butler showed them how it was done. An almighty scramble from a corner resulted in the ball coming back to the edge of the box where Butler was, erm, waiting to pouce (!). Buttigol then swivelled elegantly and put the ball back in the general direction of the goal, probably in the hope that someone would get their noggin on it. Fortunately, no-one did and the ball curved magnificently into the top corner to give Wolves a glimmer of hope. I may be doing old Butts a dis-service though, and if I am- I apologise. That gave Wolves something to fight for, and when Carlton Cole burst clear we all thought perhaps a late Christmas present would be ours. But nope, Carlton ran straight into Marlon (Beresford that is) and anyway, the linesman had his flag up. So that was that, another bitterly disappointing result for Wolves and our first defeat at Turf Moor since 1963.
on 27/12/2002, 11:51 am, in reply to "Re: Cracking win today..."
agreed, totally excellent performance yesterday, weller was outstanding in the middle.
a welcome return to form too by coxy and arfur, who gave the front two, or three in the second half, absolutely nowt.
report from wolves rivals site is quite fair to us, although it does raise the point about us 'sitting back' on our lead, which is perfectly true.
i thought the ball wasn't holding up at all in the second half and would have taken off blake for a bit of pace up front, a lot earlier than stan did. blake had run himself into the ground for the cause.
Anyway, having sat through three electorcutions, a shooting and a few mental breakdowns on the video, we finally arrived at Turf Moor.
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