Wolves boss Solbakken left fuming as equaliser allowed to stand

Frustrated Wolves today blasted the decision to allow Crystal Palace's equaliser last night after claiming it was offside.

The first of Wilfried Zaha's two strikes in the 2-1 defeat was allowed to stand despite there being an offside in the Palace attack when Joel Ward launched the ball forward.

But the linesman on the near side failed to spot the infringement and the goal, which cancelled out Sylvan Ebanks-Blake's 53rd-minute opener, stood.

"It was perfect defending but bad from the linesman because there were two men offside when the ball was played," said Wolves boss Stale Solbakken.

"But that happens and the linesman can always make a mistake. You can always find faults and maybe we should have defended better, but I've seen it again and the first goal came from a clear offside."

Wolves defender Christophe Berra was the closest home player to the incident and it was his wayward header that let in Zaha to equalise.

He said: "We've watched it back on the video and the first goal was clearly offside – I don't know what the linesman was doing but their attacker started off from behind me. I could feel him near me and the video doesn't lie, so it was a bad decision."

Solbakken also believes Wolves could have defended the second goal better too, adding: "Zaha turned him (Stephen Ward) and shot. I don't want to take anything away from him, but we could have done better with that."

After that Berra missed two headed chances. He added: "I could have scored with a couple of headers – Bakary Sako put some great balls in but we just couldn't find that second goal to have killed them off."

Berra believes Zaha is destined for the Premier League but suggested he needs to develop more consistency.

"He's a good player – but he can either be 'on fire' or probably doesn't turn up," he said. "He did well but his first goal was offside.

"I'm sure he's got a bright future. I'm sure if he keeps on putting in those type of performances, someone from the Premier League will snap him up."