Express & Star

Wolves 3 QPR 3

A biting cold day at Molineux – but at last there was something to warm the hearts of Wolves fans, writes Martin Swain.

A thrilling match, climaxed by Andy Keogh’s dramatic 95th minute equaliser which was the very least they deserved, saw their previously docile team rediscover the vibrant, attacking football that has eluded Mick McCarthy through a long, gruelling, winter struggle.

Well, Britain may still be shivering but Wolves fans will be hoping their team has moved into its own Spring time with a performance which suddenly made it feel like last season again.

McCarthy has been at pains to point out of late that he could not be less concerned about the raging debate over his team’s form as long as the results kept coming.

And to their credit, Wolves have chipped away relentlessly at a top six challenge even as more and more supporters became resigned to a fruitless season.

One more point from a home game against mid-table QPR may seem flimsy.

But for once, this was a day when the performance carried more significance than the result.

In the table, Wolves didn’t gain any ground but didn’t lose any either.

But out on the pitch, they found fresh conviction that they still have the game and the players to nail a top six finish over these final seven matches.

McCarthy also mistrusts ‘stats’ but one or two from the weekend are revealing. This was only the fifth time this season that Wolves have scored three or more goals in a game – but the previous four occasions (Sheffield Wednesday, Cardiff, Watford and Burnley) all came in away fixtures.

This re-inforces the view that his Michael Kightly-less side have found it increasingly difficult to breach the well-organised defences which confront them at Molineux. But on Saturday, they registered nearly three times as many goal attempts as Rangers (14-5), twice as many corners (8-4) and left their fans puzzled as to where on earth this adventure has been for the last four or five months.

Perhaps we should hold the relish for a moment and acknowledge that QPR’s Italian influence makes them singularly different Championship opposition. They play a more open game than the bulk of the league and Wolves clearly enjoyed the challenge to their passing and movement as opposed to their passion and muscle.

“But I don’t remember when we’ve played as well as that,” was McCarthy’s keynote quote afterwards and neither do those supporters; they just hope it’s a sign of things to come and not an isolated reminder of what they have been missing.

And how significant in this development is the return of Seyi Olofinjana? Who on earth that impostor was wearing his shirt and playing in his position for the first half of the campaign I’m not really sure, but it is certainly heartening to see the genuine article once more filling Wolves’ midfield.

It seems a mighty coincidence that Wolves’ freshest and most fluent performance in an age should come on the day when last season’s 10-goal top scorer rediscovered his 2006-07 vintage. His combinations with another of the key figures in this sudden and welcome advance, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, were particularly exciting and promising – they could cause some real damage between them in the remaining weeks.

And Matt Jarvis’s impact not only raised the question about what might have been had he been fit and firing from the off, but teased the imagination about what Jarvis on one side and Kightly on the other might have achieved.

But it was Keogh who would emerge as the central figure in the piece not just because of the goals he scored but the one he missed.

Frustrations

That came on the half-hour after Ebanks-Blake and Olofinjana had opened up Rangers to send Keogh clear and with an inviting angle at his disposal as Lee Camp came from his line to greet him. But, slap bang in front of the South Bank, Keogh dragged his shot wide and all the frustrations of this campaign came pouring out from behind the goal as the chant of “Freddy, Freddy” rose up.

To be fair to the fans, they immediately issued an apology by singing Keogh’s name afterwards but the point was made – Eastwood or no Eastwood, they expected better this season. For once, they got it.

McCarthy’s team only surrendered control of the game for a 10-15 first half minute spell climaxed by Akos Buzsaky’s punishing drive for Rangers’ first goal which followed a sudden flurry of errors led by Kevin Foley conceding possession.

But Keogh would atone for his miss just before the interval as Wolves suggested this would be an afternoon to break the mould of what has gone before.

The unforeseen bonus of Michael Gray’s midfield form resulted in a beautifully-flighted cross for which Keogh barely had to disturb himself before directing a header into the corner.

Nothumberland official Clive Oliver then took centre stage by awarding two penalties, one for each team, which I would imagine were not his finest moments in refereeing.

Naturally, the one which punished Wolves in the 47th minute had something to do with Neill Collins – although it was tough handball call – while Mr Oliver was perhaps squaring things off when QPR’s Michael Mancienne was adjudged to have clipped Jarvis’s flying heels 18 minutes later.

Still, both spot-kicks were faultlessly dispatched by Dexter Blackstock and Ebanks-Blake and had the impact of rousing the contest even further for its splendid finale.

The saves Camp made from Karl Henry and Jarvis, as Wolves poured forward with a real threat about them were outstanding, as was the 20 yard Mikele Leigertwood drive which flew past Wayne Hennessey 11 minutes from time and shunted Wolves towards defeat.

But they had enough about them to rise once more and one final, pulsating charge, triggered by another powerful Ebanks-Blake moment, saw Keogh pounce on the scraps of a frantic goalmouth scramble.

Many’s the time this season Molineux has been filled with air of a hospital visit to a patient in a coma. But, lo and behold, the patient stirred on Saturday – and there is hope for a full recovery yet.