Five Things: Wolverhampton Wanderers 5-1 Bolton Wanderers

So Wolverhampton Wanderers continued their march towards the Premier League by brushing aside an outclassed Bolton Wanderers. It was a wake up call after 7 unbeaten for the Whites, here are five things as normality resumes.

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All the long balls really started pissing me off. The ball was smashed in the general direction of Gary Madine who was either beaten to the ball or unable to find any team mates 9 times out of 10. What’s the bloody point of doing it whenever we have the ball if we lose it every single time? Particularly when you look a thing 2 below.

It didn’t work today at all. We need a plan B and we need it fast.

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When we brought the ball down and passed it around we looked alright at doing it, OK not Barcalona-esc but still. Yes we struggled to find a break through, but we were playing a top team and its not like we looked any more threatening when playing give Madine dementia.

If we do it more often maybe we will become more effective with the ball at feet. Yes smacking it at Madine has worked recently, but it won’t always. We need to mix it up during games if we are going to start another run and turn draws into wins.

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Whatever we did with the ball we just didn’t really threaten the Wolves goal. Yes we scored but really it was the worst goal I have ever seen. It was a total freak goal and is not worth discussing in a serious summing up of Bolton’s performance.

We do not, and cannot expect to, have enough to match teams like Wolves. But looking so toothless is still a concern. We have to hope it’s a one off against a top team and that we can go again next time out with more potency.

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Apart from one or two not very threatening shots what did they do going forward? Can anyone remember? No. Nor can I. They were both about as threatening as a kitten wearing a lions mane.

Ameobi’s return has coincided with an upturn in form and he has contributed to that. But I fear he is starting to look out of his depth at this level. Teams will be paying more attention to him now, and Wolves were quick to put a couple on him. The problem is I do not see Ameobi really escaping that attention. I hope I am forced to again apologise for my comments about Ameobi and he proves me wrong once again

Armstrong is not a wide player. Will Buckley, Craig Noone and Filipe Morais all are. Yes Morais is out of his depth in this league and Noone wasn't all that amazing against Wolves, though he offered more than Ameobi. Buckley though found some space and showed a little bit more. Armstrong needs to be dropped to see what else someone can do if we are sticking with that system.

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Our number 1 keeper, no doubt about it. After this game that scares me more than a mad axman at my door.

I would say that he was at fault for 3 of Wolves’ 5 goals. For the second he ran out of his box like a nutter leaving the goal easily unguarded. For the fourth he passed it straight to a Wolves player and they went on to score. With the fifth he got something to it but it went under him, maybe a harsh one but I felt he should be saving it.

At the same time he made a couple of great saves either side of half time to keep the score down. If he had at least done the simple things right it would have been 1-0 at half time rather than 2-0. That leaves scope for grabbing something. It would then have been 2-1 not 3-1, again it creates an opportunity to steal something. The full time result would have been 3-1 which is far more respectable, and that’s ignoring the one I felt he should have saved.

If we are going to stay up we need a keeper who we can trust to keep us in games and not give away easy goals. Hopefully Alnwick will brush himself down and learn from this fast.