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Brentford v Wolves - five talking points

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Wolves crashed to a miserable 3-0 defeat at Brentford as their horrendous run of form continued.

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Supporters angrily turned on Kenny Jackett and his players - including Rajiv van La Parra who was booed - as the pressure on the Wolves boss intensified.

Wolves correspondent Tim Spiers picks out five talking points from a dreadful night at Griffin Park.

Jackett felt his team's confidence drained away

This felt like an end of days defeat.

We've seen plenty of them before. A 3-0 shellacking at Portsmouth did for Graham Turner.

Dave Jones went after a turgid 1-0 defeat to Gillingham. Stale Solbakken couldn't survive the humiliating FA Cup defeat at lowly Luton.

And of course Mick McCarthy was given the boot after the derby day disgrace against the Albion.

Whether it happens or not, this game shared similarities with those above.

A team out of ideas and short on inspiration. A fanbase at the end of its tether and calling for action. A manager unable to explain what he had seen.

The many merits of Kenny Jackett as a football manager have been trawled over at length on these pages.

And for those calling for his head it's worth pointing out again just a few of the factors out of his control this season.

Without Dicko, Sako and Afobe he's lost 47 goals from the team that finished seventh last season. Wolves are still only on 40 goals for 2015/16.

He's been crippled by injuries at the worst possible time, most notably Jordan Graham, David Edwards, Michal Zyro and now Mike Williamson in recent weeks.

Most of the players brought in by the recruitment team to replace those to have left, who included of course Richard Stearman, haven't made the required impact.

With Wolves up for sale, there is no leadership from the top down. The wage bill has been slashed, and Wolves can't compete financially with up to half of the Championship's 24 teams.

All mitigating factors to defend Jackett with.

He knows better than anyone, though, that the kind of winless/losing run he's on has sounded the death knell for many a manager.

This is a results business, and Jackett must produce them.

Whether it would be the right decision or not, the notion of him being sacked does become less unlikely with every defeat that passes.

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There was no way back after Brentford's third goal

There were many glaring deficiencies in this surprisingly inept and submissive performance, from back to front, but the defending was as bad as it's been for a while.

Hesitant and cautious at times, statuesque at others. There was an awful lot of ball-watching going on, too.

It never fails to alarm just how quickly Wolves' confidence is sapped, how badly they respond to adversity.

They're the crumbly Hobnob dunked into a cup of tea for a split-second too long that scatters instantly and sporadically, unable to reform its original sturdy formation.

On the night Barcelona graced North London, over in West London Wolves made Alan Judge, Sergi Canos and John Swift look better than Messi, Neymar and Suarez.

Large amounts of space were frequently afforded to the marauding Brentford front line.

The Bees' first goal was a calamitous one to concede, with Danny Batth and Ethan Ebanks-Landell stumbling over themselves to try and clear the ball, but succeeding only in helping divert it towards their own net.

For the second, Matt Doherty was caught napping with a ball down Brentford's left, and from the resulting cross nobody from midfield tracked the run of Canos.

And then the third - a dribbler of a cross, not cut out by Batth or Doherty, and it's a tap-in for Swift.

Brentford could easily have scored more - they hit the post, missed at least two free headers, and were denied by several last-ditch blocks.

Kenny Jackett said he was 'hurt' by his team's performance, and the defending will have pained him most of all.

Skipper Danny Batth at full time

Closely followed by, once again, Wolves being comfortably outdone for possession.

At Huddersfield they had just 38 per cent of the ball. Here it was only marginally higher at 42 per cent.

There was an infuriatingly high number of passes chucked at Bjorn Sigurdarson's head.

And for a 20-minute spell in the first half the ball just kept coming back at Wolves, time and time again, as they invited pressure onto their fragile back line.

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Try tell that to Wolves' defenders and midfielders, who so struggled to form any sort of coherent attacks from the back or from midfield.

Van La Parra referenced his wages in his Instagram biography this week

Is there any way back from here for Rajiv van La Parra?

After his foolish social media faux-pas - and an apology/excuse that did little to satisfy the Wolves hordes - it was a surprise to see him start.

But with Zyro and Henry not yet fit, Jackett had a lack of options out wide (indeed, teenage winger Connor Hunte was named on the bench for the first time) and so Van La Parra took his place in the side.

He did okay at times in the first half, trying to make things happen down the right with a couple of decent runs and crosses.

There were no discernible boos from the away supporters, either.

All that changed after Brentford's second goal, by which time patience with the lacklustre display they were witnessing went out of the window.

Van La Parra's every touch was loudly booed thereafter, as was his trudge to the touchline when being substituted.

A chant of "you're not fit to wear the shirt" followed a couple of minutes later.

It was abuse of one of their own rarely seen on such a scale in recent memory.

If Zyro and/Henry were fit, you could see Van La Parra being quickly jettisoned from the team.

But without adequate cover Jackett, who revealed afterwards he had spoken to Van La Parra about the Instagram howler, has a big selection quandary for Saturday's visit of Derby.

Fans watch on as Wolves crumble to defeat

For the third consecutive game the Wolves fans turned on their own club.

It was a nasty, toxic atmosphere at times, particularly when the players and Jackett had to walk the gauntlet of getting to the tunnel, which unfortunately for them was just to the left of where the away fans were housed.

Jackett cut a lost, isolated figure as he applauded the supporters, looking sheepish as he did so and making little eye contact.

There has been fleeting talk of protests before, during or after the Derby game.

If that talk materialises into anything substantial, then Saturday has the potential to turn incredibly ugly.

A convincing victory changes all that. But who can see that happening?

What a mess this is.

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