By Tom Bason
August 10 2014

Wolves got their Championship season underway to the perfect start with a 1-0 win over Norwich City at Molineux. The turning point of the game came 15 minutes into the second half as Martin Olsson was shown a second yellow card. Less than five minutes later, Dave Edwards stole into the box to head home the winning goal

- There was a little surprise when the teams were read out pre-game. One of my favoured ripostes to people complaining about the lack of signings so far is to point out that Sam Ricketts was the only signing in place for the opening game of last season. But today, Ricketts was missed his first game since the 0-0 with Shrewsbury back in March. In his place was a more than adequate replacement as Matt Doherty played at right back. I can only assume that Kenny Jackett was a little worried about the pace of Nathan Redmond down Norwich's left wing against the aging Ricketts. This is compounded by Danny Batth's lack of pace as the right-sided centre back. There is the potential for us to be left exposed down this flank. The other surprise was the inclusion of Bakary Sako, who most didn't expect to be fit, and Ravij van La Parra on the flanks. If we are playing the 4-3-3 with a more solid midfield, then I don't think Michael Jacobs has a place. His tendency to go wandering and leave his fullback exposed probably cost him his first team place today.

- Today was the first game Michael Jacobs had failed to start since the 3-3 draw with Rotherham in December 2013. In all of that time since, he has missed just 109 minutes. When tallied with Sam Ricketts, it was the first time that neither had been in the starting eleven for a league game since the 1-0 win over Notts County last November, indicating just how important they are for the team. Does it show an increased strength in depth? Perhaps, but last season either could easily have been rested towards the end of the season for the likes of Doherty or James Henry. But it did contribute to Jackett having options on the bench; in Henry, Jacobs and potentially Leon Clarke, Jackett had a couple of options had things not been going well. 

- Norwich lined up with a diamond midfield; Bradley Johnson sat deep, former wolfs Elliot Bennett and Andrew Surman shuttled from inside to out, while Wes Hoolahan floated in behind a front two of Redmond and new signing Lewis Grabban. I've never been a big fan of a diamond midfield (not helped by our ill-advised attempt at it last season), feeling it leaves you exposed down the flanks. Elliot and Surman did a decent job at moving out wide, but Norwich struggled to get any joy down the wings. However, it does give a plethora of bodies through the middle, and it was clear that this was Norwich's strength. I do think that if you have no width, it leaves you heavily reliant on the attacking midfielder to create chances out of nothing and in Wes Hoolahan Norwich probably have one of the best in the division, but he was unable to create anything today. It will be interesting to see how they get on with this formation this season.

 - Given Norwich's strength in the middle of the pitch, it's not surprising that our best opportunities came from out wide, with David Edwards firing over within the first minute. With Norwich not having any real attacking width, there were plenty of opportunities for Doherty and Scott Golbourne to push forward. This is perhaps where we missed Ricketts who is a more potent attacking threat than Doherty. Our best opportunities to attack tended to be when we switched play quickly to the other flank, but neither Kevin McDonald nor Lee Evans quite had their radars tuned in In fact, none of the central midfielders had their best games, but I don't think this was particularly a worry. Norwich flooded the central midfield and Evans and McDonald were pressured in a way that won't happen against other teams playing different formations. What disappointed me slightly was the way we didn't overly take advantage of Norwich's exposed fullbacks and general lack of width. By giving up the central midfield, we should have been more prepared to take advantage of the space that opens up elsewhere and this never really happened.  This is partly because neither Golbourne or Doherty are ever going to create something from nothing, but rely on others to work them into positions from which they can attack, and Norwich worked hard to cut off their supply lines.

- There was no surprise that the two moments that effectively won the game came from play down the flanks. In the first half, Martin Olsson scythed down van La Parra in the centre of the pitch. It was then quite frustrating that we never really got van La Parra into a position where he could really attack the fullback and force him into committing to a tackle. But, eventually we got them in a one on one race, which van La Parra easily won and looked to drive into the penalty area. How much contact there was from Olsson, and whether it was deliberate or not, I'm not really sure, but as soon as the free kick was given there was only ever one outcome. This forced Norwich into a reshuffle, moving to a 4-4-1 formation with Javier Garrido substituted on at left back. The change in formation finally allowed McDonald and Evans some breathing room and they were able to spread the play to van La Parra. He was given too much space by Garrido to cross and it was superbly met by Edwards, breaking into the area from deep. Edwards had struggled for much of the game, not having the nous to play as the attacking midfielder, especially given Norwich had an anchor man of the quality of Johnson. But, he seems to have developed a nose for goal this year, with seven goals in his last 11 appearances, and in the last nine months, has almost doubled his goals tally for Wolves.

- Norwich had actually started the second half as probably the better team, but were significantly hampered by their lack of width. Apart from a pinball in the penalty area late on and an Elliot Bennett drive that was always going over, their best two chances came from long balls. Firstly Redmond failed to control difficult long pass on his chest, then Grabban forced Ikeme into a save after another long ball up the right hand channel. I think the worrying thing here was how easy we were opened up from optimistic balls forward, but that these were the only two chances they had gives credit to the defence. Chasing a game when a man down isn't easy, and Norwich threw on Kyle Lafferty upfront and played Bennett as a sort of wingback. But, we played out the remainder of the game with some ease, and should doubled the lead when Nouha Dicko broke free in the inside right channel and instead of firing past John Ruddy, completely messed up an attempted pass to Sako who still should have scored. Wolves made three substitutions, with Leon Clarke having a couple of opportunities to get a shot away that won't do his confidence any good, especially with the Chris Wood news. With some better play, we could have picked Norwich off towards the end and we'd have been kicking ourselves had we not hung onto the three points.