By Scott Cooper
August 12 2006

WOLVES 1-1 PRESTON NORTH END - Wolves came back to earth with a big bump on Friday night after Preston demolished Wolves 3-1 at Molinuex in front of the lowest league attendance since 2001.

At 7.45pm on Friday evening there was an air of optimism and slight excitement around Molineux, however at just gone 9.30pm - as Whaley struck the third goal of the game for the visitors - the mood around Molineux was one of despair.

Tonight the true position Wolverhampton Wanderers currently find themselves in may have hit home. Wolves are in a re-building stage and this season will be long and hard.

Sure there will be good moments (however it will take something special for a performance to be better than the one against Ipswich on Tuesday) but there will also be plenty of poor moments, with the 3-1 defeat on Friday evening being  the first of what will be one of many disappointing weekends to come.

In truth, Wolves lacked quality. The midfield with O'Connor and Henry looked lightweight, Clapham simply isn't a left winger, Ricketts was poor, Naylor looked like he was already in Scotland and Mark Clyde tried but with little effect.

However it's difficult to really criticise the team. We must remember that this was only their third ever game played together whilst the likes of Kevin O'Connor was making just his third ever first team appearance.

Henry has yet to have a settle run in any one position throughout his whole career whilst two weeks ago Jamie Clapham was playing in a trial game for Sheffield United. Mark Clyde hasn't played for well over a season prior to the Plymouth game and Naylor missed the whole pre-season and was withdrawn just after half time on Tuesday for being sick on the pitch!

This is the harsh reality of "re-building" and unfortunately there will be more ups and plenty of downs to come throughout the season. The play-offs are probably a pipe dream but there is no reason why this side can't finish mid-table this season and kick on next .

It all looked so rosy too as Wolves took the lead on the 14th minute. Striker Jay Bothroyd cut in from the right hand side, raced into the area and smashed the ball past Nash at his near post to score his second Wolves goal in as many games.

However it's fair to say Preston were by far the better team throughout and it was no real surprise when they equalised. A corner was punched to the half way line by Murray and as the ball was helped back into the area the impressive Nugent smashed the ball home.

It was all square at the break but the second half completely belonged to the visitors. Paul Simpson has created a hard working side and it was their star man, David Nugent, who put the visitors into the lead.

A loose ball on the edge of the area should have been deal with by Henry, but Nugent picked the ball up, picked his spot and fired the ball past Murray to his lower left hand side.

Wolves rallied late on but were unable to find the equaliser they were looking for. There was a fourth goal of the game however, but it belonged to Preston. A poor defensive clearance from Craddock found Whaley who beat Murray from 20 yards to put the game beyond all doubt.

WOLVES 1-3 PRESTON

Verdict:

Back to earth with a bump however the season was always going to be like this. We may have taken four points from the first three games three weeks ago if they were offered to us and we must concentrate on the positives. Against Ipswich they set the benchmark and there is no reason why this side can't finish in the upper regions of mid-table if they can repeat the performance of earlier this week.

Failing that we come out of the first week of the season knowing we're four points closer to safety. It's off to Burnley next.