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Just like it always is at Molineux
Despite suggesting there could be changes it was same again from Steve Cotterill albeit with a change in formation that saw Dean Bowditch move onto the left hand side of a midfield five with Jean-Louis Valois employed as the lone front man.
It didn’t work unfortunately and we were under pressure almost from the off although we did have a couple of half chances but the nearest we had to an early goal was a well struck free kick from Wolves full back Lee Naylor.
It looked destined for the top corner right in front of the Burnley fans situated behind that goal but Jensen made a superb save to keep it out at the expense of a corner.
There was no respite though and Wolves seemed to be coming forward in waves and twice we were somewhat fortunate to survive after Mo Camara, playing against his old team, was too easily beaten.
Somehow we held firm and as always Gary Cahill came to the rescue when required with two excellent challenges that saw the ball to safety.
Nothing was being seen of the Burnley side who were struggling in the midfield area whilst Valois up front seemed to have found the knack of making himself unavailable at will.
The best chance of the half fell to Carl Cort who made a real mess of his effort but shortly afterwards, and just eight minutes before the break, we fell behind to something of a soft goal.
Cort flicked on an Ince free kick and it dropped nicely for Kenny Miller who made no mistake from close range. You sensed that was game over, that we wouldn’t be able to get back into it.
Certainly we didn’t threaten for the rest of the first half and we had to be thankful to go in just one down at the interval.
We came out unchanged for the start of the second half although Bowditch joined Valois up front in a 4-4-2 formation and for the first few minutes of the half we played our best football on the night.
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Could we get ourselves back into the game? The answer was no and it was definitely all over just before the hour when Ince scored with a long range effort that beat Jensen to his right hand side.
Two down, Steve Cotterill made substitutions, but it made no difference at all and the longer it went on the worse it seemed to get.
Poor Mo Camara was turning in some of his 2003/04 style play and twice got down the left only to deliver dreadful crosses much to the delight of the Wolves fans who sung, “Super, super Mo,” at him. Mo gave them a wave.
John McGreal and Paul Ince were both booked in an incident but it wasn’t clear exactly what had happened but it did appear that Ince might well have headbutted McGreal. If that was the case then he should have been sent off.
Unfortunately it was Johnny Mac who suffered the most, in stoppage time he brought down Naylor and received his second booking and that means he will miss Saturday’s trip to Bramall Lane.
It really was a night to forget, and was probably the worst performance of the season. We didn’t seem able to lift our game at all and it proved to be a real struggle from start to finish.
Now, we have to lift ourselves for the trip to the real graveyard on Saturday, we can only hope that Ade Akinbiyi can give us a lift before we have a short break because of the international weekend. We certainly look as though we need it.
We can do without too many performances like this, thankfully there haven’t been very many so far this season.
The teams were,
Wolves: Michael Oakes, Rob Edwards, Joleon Lescott, Jody Craddock, Lee Naylor, Ki-Hyeon Seol, Paul Ince, Seyi George Olofinjana, Mark Kennedy, Kenny Miller (Rohan Ricketts 79), Carl Cort. Subs not used: Paul Jones, Kevin Cooper, Keith Andrews, Leon Clarke.
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Frank Sinclair, Gary Cahill, John McGreal, Mo Camara, John Oster, Micah Hyde, Tony Grant, Pete Whittingham (Graham Branch 71), Dean Bowditch (Michael Duff 85), Jean-Louis Valois (Ian Moore 64). Subs not used: Danny Coyne, Lee Roche.
Referee: Carl Boyeson (East Yorkshire).
Attendance: 24,336.