Wolves v Derby - five talking points
Wolves ended a seven-game winless run in dramatic style against Derby.
Unlikely hero George Saville scored his first two goals for the club including an 86th minute winner as the promotion-chasing Rams were beaten.
Victory relieved the pressure on under-fire boss Kenny Jackett. Wolves correspondent Tim Spiers picks out five talking points.
A relief for the fans, a relief for the players and one hell of a relief for Kenny Jackett.
A fourth defeat on the trot would have made Jackett extremely vulnerable.
The climate was rife for the crowd to turn on Wolves once again, after the vitriol aimed at them at Brentford in midweek.
But any talk of protests was quelled by a much improved Wolves performance.
There wasn't a huge amount of free-flowing attacking football on show, but Wolves' determination and fight was evident from the outset, and the fans stayed on side.
The only dissent came when Jackett replaced a tiring Nathan Byrne with Joe Mason late on. A few boos and a chant of "you don't know what you're doing" was unnecessary and extremely harsh.
Saville's winner was probably the moment of the season so far. Wolves haven't really done late drama, bar Adam Le Fondre's winner against Charlton and Kevin McDonald's last-gasp equaliser at Preston.
But Saville's goal transformed the mood of the entire football club. From the desolation and anger of recent weeks to unconfined joy – in one header.
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There'll be no talk of a turning point here.
Wolves have taken one step forward and then two steps back all season long. And with fixtures against Middlesbrough, Birmingham and Burnley, as well as in-form Bristol City, to come in March, the odds of a winning run look remote.
But what this victory did do was give hope for the future.
A Wolves side still shorn of so many important players - and Mike Williamson, Michal Zyro and James Henry should all return soon - prevented the most expensively-assembled squad in the Championship from creating a single clear-cut chance of note in the entire game.
The average age of this XI was just 24.
Kevin McDonald was the oldest outfield player at 27, Danny Batth the most senior defender at just 25.
Jackett pointed to two-goal hero Saville as an example of one of his 'developing' players, in contrast to the Rams who have a squad so packed with ready-made quality that a place couldn't be found on the subs' bench for England internationals Darren Bent and Stephen Warnock.
It's been a miserable few weeks but the hope, as Jackett says, is that these players will be better for the experience.
It's too late for this season, surely, but perhaps 2016/17 won't be so bad.
You'd have got long odds on Saville scoring his sixth and seventh career goals on Saturday.
The 22-year-old's only strike since April 2014 came for Bristol City away at Yeovil during a loan spell in League One last season.
But he took his two goals expertly, one a precise finish into the corner and the other a bullet header.
And he also impressed with his breaking up of the play, his breaks from midfield, his shielding of the ball and his tidy passes.
It marks a remarkable rejuvenation in his Wolves career.
He fits nicely into the 4-3-3 formation Jackett plumped for yesterday, as does new signing Jeremy Helan, who also made an impact.
Pacey, strong, direct and with a refreshing uninhibited style reminiscent of Bakary Sako in certain mannerisms, Helan is a welcome addition whose partnership with Matt Doherty looked promising.
What 4-3-3 does mean, though, is no place for Joe Mason. If Jackett goes with 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2, Mason's in. But unfortunately for the £3m signing, most of Wolves' wins in the past two months have come playing 4-3-3.
It may be harsh on the striker, but Wolves had a balance and a consistency to them, with Helan and Nathan Byrne (who enjoyed his best Wolves performance since Birmingham away in October) performing important defensive duties.
You'd think scoring two goals in one of the most important victories of the season would guarantee Saville the man of the match award.
Not so. That particular accolade went to the magnificent Conor Coady.
Coady has split opinion on the terraces since moving from Huddersfield last summer but no one could argue that he was anything but imperious in this most craved of Wolves victories.
His energy was boundless, his tenacity and determination infectious.
Derby's midfielders will have been sick to the back teeth of him, constantly snapping at their heels with all the enthusiasm and persistence of a particularly yappy Yorkshire Terrier as a postman convention.
Coady covered every blade of grass and was Wolves' driving force.
Like Saville, it was his finest hour in a gold shirt. The challenge for the pair is to make sure it's not a one-off.
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Another to impress was Matt Doherty, who has been the pick of Wolves' defenders this calendar year by a country mile.
Can left-back be considered his best position now? Doherty marauded up and down the left flank and is undoubtedly in the form of his Wolves career.
He engineered a first-half chance with a superb run into the box, later scored an offside goal with an excellent finish, and then set up Saville's winner with a pinpoint cross.
When cutting inside he poses a real threat and has come close to scoring on several occasions since his wonderstrike against Fulham last month.
Long may his form continue, starting at Middlesbrough on Friday.
Wolves will now travel north with renewed confidence and belief. We've seen of late that those qualities are fragile in this young, developing side.
The play-offs may be out of reach, but in the final 12 matches Jackett and his team have the opportunity to show us that the last six months have been a blip.
If they can't, then many of them may not still be here next season.
But if they can, then their supporters will have renewed hope that their club is going somewhere after all.
