Charlton v Wolves - five talking points

It was a victory that saw them climb to the giddy heights of 11th in the Championship table, after weeks of drifting nearer to the relegation zone.

What made the difference for Kenny Jackett's side? Wolves correspondent Tim Spiers pickings out five talking points.

If the Reading win was somewhat crude in its enactment, this was more refined.

Wolves progressed from shopping in the reduced section to browsing in the supermarket brand basics aisle. And victory, like a ready made spag bol very occasionally can, tasted sweet.

Attacking forays were few and far between in a turgid first half that will have had many questioning their reasoning of spending hard-earned wonga on trudging to South London on a Bank Holiday.

Kenny Jackett, though, wanted to his team to get a foothold in the game, sit back, be organised, not do anything silly and hope the chances would eventually present themselves against a very limited Charlton side.

The 4-5-1 system, with David Edwards sitting deeper and Conor Coady playing box-to-box, worked well from a defensive point of view, and those chances did indeed come.

It was a very effective away performance, with Jackett's instructions acted out to the letter with restraint and discipline.

For probably the first time since Mike Williamson was recalled by Newcastle, Wolves were panic-free at the back.

There were no real alarms, no embarrassing mishaps, no crippling indecision.

Charlton had pace to get in behind Wolves but a deep defensive line negated this. With Wolves 1-0 up the hosts' greatest threat came from set pieces, but again they were dealt with relatively comfortably.

Ethan Ebanks-Landell didn't put a foot wrong, Danny Batth made a very welcome return to form, Dominic Iorfa was composure personified at times with sound positional sense to boot. And Matt Doherty was very impressive at left-back, not allowing anyone to get in behind him, winning headers and supporting Jordan Graham when he could.

With Carl Ikeme doing everything that was asked of him, this was an impressive defensive rearguard.

It was a surprise to see Jackett pick the same XI that had expended so much energy chasing Reading around the park less than 48 hours earlier.

But any doubts over Wolves' staying power proved unfounded.

And the epitome of this was Coady, who must have covered every blade of grass.

With Kevin McDonald in the anchor role Coady joined Edwards in giving support to Afobe whenever possible, while also providing a shield for the back four.

And it was a role he excelled in. Charlton's midfielders must have been sick of the sight of him after 20 minutes - he was in their faces, chasing them here, there and everywhere, winning tackles and generally behaving like a proper nuisance.

In the second half in particular he regularly hared forward on the counter attack. In fact on a couple of occasions he could have been played in on goal, but wasn't picked out. He won one bone-cruncher of a challenge near the Charlton box to set up an Afobe chance, and was a purposeful presence throughout.

A word too for Edwards who also never stopped running. He teed up Graham for one opportunity and sent a devil of a ball right across goal in the first half. He also saved a probable goal with a heroic last-ditch block on Ricardo Vaz Te with the score at 1-0.

Six assists in eight games for Graham now.

He's basically the Championship's Mesut Ozil. If you play a Championship fantasy football game it's a no-brainer to get Graham in.

Again his two-footedness confused the heck out of the opposition full-back, in this case Chris Solly. Charlton doubled up to negate Graham's threat, so he merely took on two at a time instead. Or even skipped past three in a row, as he did in one delightful first half jink.

His set pieces were on the money once more, with one leading to Wolves' second goal.

And of course he finally notched his first goal in Wolves colours.

Time to give this lad a new contract, methinks.

Charlton, whose fans shouted "we want our Charlton back", booed the manager off the pitch and protested outside after the game, are a team in dire straits.

That should be taken into account when assessing this victory. But Wolves lost at Bolton, they lost at Bristol City, they couldn't beat MK Dons. And it might be a cliche but no game in this division is easy. Wolves have learned that the hard way over the years.

What this victory does do is alleviate some pressure, both on Jackett and his players.

From their three post-Christmas games, a six-point haul would have been accepted by the vast majority of Wolves supporters.

So Brighton away becomes almost a free hit. They will not be expected to even earn a point, so anything they might accrue is a bonus.

It will be a much sterner test of Wolves' temporarily newfound defensive rigidity. But far better to go there in 11th place, six points off the top six and 10 ahead of the bottom three, than the position they were in a week ago.

And then comes the January transfer window - a time where Wolves can do some very important work to address their problems, and, who knows, perhaps even dare to dream about making a belated push for the play-offs.

What a difference 48 hours makes.