By Tom Bason
November 22 2014

A poor second half performance saw Wolves go down 3-0 at home to Nottingham Forest. After an even first half, Britt Assombalonga gave Forest the lead, before goals from Matty Fryatt and Henri Lansbury secured all three points for Stuart Pearce’s side.

- With Nouha Dicko presumably still injured (an injury that seems to be worryingly troublesome), new boy Danny Graham was asked to lead the line upfront. Elsewhere, Sam Ricketts came back into the team at left back, with Tommy Rowe pushing forwards into the midfield at the expense of Lee Evans. I had hoped that having a more combative partner in midfield might allow Kevin McDonald a little more freedom to go forward and start to influence games in the way that a player with his abilities should be able to. Nottingham Forest played a 4-4-2 formation, with Matty Fryatt playing just in behind Britt Assombalonga. 

- Forest started the game the brighter, with Michail Antonio being the main outlet. He caused Matt Doherty problems throughout, and twice in the opening 10 minutes had the Wolves diving in with desperate lunges; the first he managed to win the ball, but was beaten all ends up by the second and was fortunate that Antonio had slightly overran the ball. Wolves’ first chance came when a good ball from Bakary Sako released Dave Edwards down the right, and his low cross was prodded towards goal by Graham. After this the game was more open, with Edwards almost being gifted an open goal after a rush of blood to the head by goalkeeper Karl Darlow, and Graham chasing a weak back pass by Michael Mancienne to block a Darlow clearance. Forest also twice went close in a few minutes. First of all McDonald and Doherty gave Henri Lansbury far too much space on the edge of the area, and he sent a right footed shot, bending in the far post. It was perhaps a nice height, but it was still an excellent save from Carl Ikeme as he flung himself to his left to tip the ball into the post, the ball fortunately evading the Forest players following up. But Wolves didn't heed the warning, and Ikeme was again forced to make a good save, tipping Fryatt's close range effort around the post. 

- One of the frustrations of the match was our midfield. We had the extra man in there, but didn't really use it. I hate continually saying this, but unless Dave Edwards is scoring goals, I don't think he adds a lot to the team. There were a couple of times when he made really good runs and could have been though on goal, but didn't possess that pace to get beyond the last defender who inevitably made the tackle. I was hoping that playing Rowe may have released McDonald a little, but the Scot was often the deeper of the two, and now without Evans to play the ball too. Having a midfield of Rowe, Edwards and McDonald puts an awful lot of pressure on McDonald to be the creator. At least when Evans is in the team, we have an additional outlet in the middle with his long range passes to the flank. But today, if McDonald was shut down, there was nothing else coming from midfield. The couple of times McDonald got around the Forest penalty area, he was dangerous - slipping Edwards through on goal, with the Welshman judged to be offside, and crossing for Rajiv van La Parra to head miles wide when well placed. I think at some point we need to give Michael Jacobs a go in the position he was so successful in last season. Some might say he hasn't impressed at all this season, but I thought he was pretty useless when played as a winger in League One, so wouldn't expect to be any better in the Championship. It was when he was played through the middle that his ability to wriggle away from challenges made him so dangerous. 

- Wolves made a change just before half time, with Richard Stearman replacing the presumably injured Ethan Ebanks-Landell. This was a little strange - I assume Ebanks-Landell was injured, but there seemed to be no visible injury and Stearman took at least eight minutes to get ready to come on. If Ebanks-Landell was injured, I'd have thought Stearman would have been in slightly more of a rush. I also thought we could perhaps have held on until half time and let Ebanks-Landell be assessed properly. Just as in the first half, it was Forest who started the brighter, and were the better team for the rest of the match. They should have taken the lead when Tommy Rowe chased a back pass to goalkeeper Darlow, who managed to clear. It does my head in when midfielders do this - they very rarely get the ball and then they leave a huge gap in the midfield where they should be. With Edwards not filling in properly, Forest almost took advantage of the space and had they worked the ball slightly better, they could have had a great opportunity to take the lead. I always think that midfielders chasing the ball like that excite the crowd, but it's stupid and leaves huge gaps elsewhere. 

- Kenny Jackett made a perhaps surprising second substitution, taking off James Henry for Liam McAlinden. Dave Edwards nominally moved to the right of midfield, while McAlinden joined Graham upfront. This was surprising, and I'm not 100% sure what Jackett hoped to achieve through this move. Henry hadn't had his best game, typically over hitting crosses when in good positions, but Edwards is worse on the flank than he is behind a striker. Perhaps Jackett wanted to give Doherty a little more protection, but this failed as Forest took the lead with the best move of the match. Some slick passing in the inside left channel saw Fryatt reach the by-line, and his low cross was tapped in by Assombalonga from inside the six-yard box. Just minutes later, Fryatt doubled the lead; an inswinging corner from the left wing somehow evaded McDonald at the near post glanced Fryatt's head and nestled in at the far post. 

- At this point, Jackett took off Edwards and brought on van La Parra who could have scored with his first touch from the aforementioned McDonald cross. Van La Parra caused problems down the right, and worked well with Matt Doherty to release the Irish fullback down the right. Doherty reached the by-line, and his cut back was met by Rowe, but the effort was blocked. I got the feeling that if we had scored then, when we had a little spell of pressure, we could have easily gone on and got an equaliser. But Forest overcame that pressure and from then on played with freedom, and deserved their third goal from Lansbury as Wolves chased shadows. 

- I'm sure if it was Jackett's introduction of McAlinden that really cost us a point, but we seemed to lose what little control we had in the middle. As we moved to two central midfielders, Fryatt, who had been playing the deeper of the two strikers found himself with a lot more space and was able to create the opening goal. We also lost an outlet on the flank with Edwards practically anonymous out there. It was certainly a strange decision to throw McAlinden on, especially when Graham had been doing well by himself upfront. He held the ball up well, far better than Dicko does, and while he lacks Dicko's explosive pace, his movement will cause defences problems. He certainly already appears to be our best option upfront while Dicko is injured.

- We went into the live game on Sky against Reading having conceded just three goals in eight games. Since then we have conceded 22 in ten games as the defence has struggled with a change in personnel and a lack of leadership at the back. But, for those of you panicking at the moment, let me remind you that between 5^th November and 3^rd January last season, we won just three out of eleven games. Kenny Jackett came up with a solution after that, I think we need to give him the benefit of the doubt he can do it again.