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Simply fan-tastic as Wolves seal late win - match analysis

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Poor game, amazing support, huge result. Sadly, this wasn't a game to match the occasion created by Wolves' record-breaking following.

But few of the 8,943 away supporters who made it such a memorable day at Milton Keynes on Saturday will mind too much.

The three points safely pocketed saw Wolves took another leap towards automatic promotion.

Just as they were determined to have a cracking day out, all those fans know that the result is all that matters at this stage. Taking care of business is all that counts in the battle to go up.

And a 12th win in 14 and a 21st clean sheet of the season did that.

That Wolves did little more in a poor game devoid of much tempo and chances doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

That they won and took another step towards promotion does.

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It was always going to be difficult to match the hype, scale and colour created by the amazing travelling support which helped create records for the ground (20,516) and away support and confirmed Wolves' biggest travelling for a league game following since 12,000 packed out the Smethwick End at Albion in December 1990.

The amazing scenes cranked up the pressure on the players they had come to see however, meaning the very least the lilac-shirted Wolves could do was come away with three points.

Saturday's win and a 1-0 defeat for Leyton Orient at home to Bradford mean 11 more points from the final seven games will guarantee the prize those fans demand.

It will probably take less to earn that return to the Championship, but a late run on the rails by Rotherham – the visitors to Molineux on Good Friday – that has seen them on a 15-match unbeaten run during which they have dropped just eight points has been noted.

First, Orient and Peterborough, then Brentford and now the Millers, the relentless form of their rivals has kept Wolves on their toes throughout the campaign.

And after recently setting a club record haul of nine consecutive wins, more milestones are now in sight.

With seven games still to play, they are just six short of Graham Turner's side's 92 points from the same division in 1988-89, two wins behind the 28 managed by Stan Cullis' League champions of 1958 and 1959 and two shut-outs short of the 23 clean sheets of the Third Division (North) champions of 1923-24.

The likelihood is all three markers will fall in the next month.

Records are all very nice of course but they aren't the hard currency required and head coach Kenny Jackett will be demanding maximum effort from his players in the remaining games to drag them over the line.

Jackett continually talks about finding a way to win, but at the weekend, it looked as elusive as the squat but hugely impressive stadium:mk itself when you're confronted by anonymous roundabout after anonymous roundabout in the urban sprawl that is Milton Keynes.

Flowing football strangled by a surface described several times by Jackett as a rugby pitch, it was a game going nowhere for 80 minutes as two passing teams struggled to, well, pass it. In the end, their 26th league victory of the season was not for the first time inspired by a substitution and a slice of fortune.

However, the clinical winning header dispatched by Liam McAlinden was not only the Cannock lad's first league strike for the club, but it represented a reply to those concerned about the absence of a loan arrival before the window shut as cover for Leon Clarke and Nouha Dicko.

McAlinden has had few chances to impress as Dicko in particular has grabbed his chance with both hands in the 4-2-3-1 or 4-1-4-1 formations which have evolved since the turn of the year.

But McAlinden is a clever player, and his arrival with that of Clarke in the 61st minute for Jack Price and Dicko wasn't just a show of faith in the 20-year-old striker but another game-changing decision by Jackett.

It just wasn't happening for the willing Dicko, and, while there was nothing wrong with Price's work, there was a feeling of Jackett going for the win with the arrival of two strikers with half an hour to go.

The fortune was provided by Dons substitute Sanmi Odelusi.

The on-loan Bolton forward shook hands warmly with his former team-mate Sam Ricketts at half-time, but it was the Wolves captain who might have been tempted to embrace him after a rush of blood saw him sent off after two needless, rash lunges on Scott Golbourne within eight minutes of each other.

The second of those gave Wolves a free-kick on the left, and after James Henry's curling set-piece sparked an almighty scramble in the box and a blocked shot from McAlinden from the edge of the area, the loose ball found Kevin McDonald on the right for a clipped cross nodded home by the youngster to send the thousands of fans behind the goal into ecstasy.

As Jackett and boyhood Wolves fan McAlinden said afterwards, it was the stuff dreams are made of.

There was little prior to the goal that suggested a third successive win would be theirs though.

Michael Jacobs curled one wide and Dicko fired inches over while Carl Ikeme made a diving catch from Dean Bowditch's dipping volley in a first half from which the highlight was probably a feeble Mexican wave among the vast gold-shirted travelling army.

At least the tempo increased after the break but chances continued to be elusive.

Ikeme darted off his line to prevent James Loveridge making further inroads onto the impressive Dele Alli's lob and Danny Batth headed wide a Henry free-kick.

While Henry had another busy afternoon, McDonald was the conductor of the orchestra.

Early on, it looked as if the Dons had done their homework as Bowditch and rumoured Liverpool target Alli were penalised for fouling the play-making Scot.

Crawley dedicated Josh Simpson to 'mind' McDonald and it was a plan that worked as teams strive to nullify Wolves' strengths in the belief that if you stop McDonald, you stop it at source.

But with the team since re-energised by Jackett's changes, there was no sign of similar shackles working on Saturday and McDonald had a growing influence on the game.

So much of Wolves' best work starts with him that it was fitting somehow that he created the only goal. After it there was a sense of inevitability about the outcome as Wolves had little trouble resisting Dons' fairly anaemic attempts at a comeback as they failed to score for a fifth successive home game.

Jackett's side have no such worries and will look to gain a further advantage in their march to promotion in their game in hand at Stevenage tomorrow night.