Rotherham 1-0 Wolves

Wolves suffered it's second defeat in five days with a 1-0 loss at Rotherham United. Substitute Ryan Hall scored a fortunate winner with 14 minutes remaining.

- After Tuesday's disappointing, but probably predictable, League Cup defeat to Northampton, Kenny Jackett returned to the same starting 11 that beat Norwich City last week. Jackett has altered his system slightly from last season, when he either played Jack Price and Kevin McDonald in behind Michael Jacobs, or McDonald sitting behind Lee Evans and David Edwards. This season however, Evans has been a lot deeper, with Edwards playing further forward. In effect, we have swapped Jacobs and Price for Edwards and Evans. Whether Evans is an upgrade from Price in the deeper role is debatable, but it's the swapping of Edwards for Jacobs that has had an effect. Personally I don't think Edwards is right for this position; he's far more effective letting play develop in front of him and breaking into the box with his late runs. Obviously, having Edwards in this position makes us more secure defensively, but I think that sometimes it almost leaves us a player down when we are attacking as Edwards just doesn't affect the game going forward.

-   Rotherham played a 4-4-2 formation, with a very high defensive line, allowed by the athleticism of goalkeeper Adam Collin. His starting position was always right on the edge of the penalty area, and this meant that on numerous occasions he was quick to clear through balls for Nouha Dicko. He was prepared to advance quite a distance out of his area to clear the ball, and this gave the defence the license to push up, safe in the knowledge that he'd clear anything up played in behind them. But, a couple of times he came for balls he didn't get anywhere near, and both Rajiv van La Parra and Dicko had chances when he'd left his goal. But the best chance came when Dicko was one on one with the goalkeeper, who was stranded in no man's land, half coming out, half staying where he was. But Dicko was didn't have the composure to finish and was only able to float a lobbed effort wide of the far post. 

- Collins as a sweeper keeper allowed Rotherham's entire team to play further up the field. His meant they could employ a high press, rarely giving the Wolves defence any time to play. Three times around the twenty minutes mark, we lost possession cheaply deep in our half. I have no issue with us passing the ball out from the back; in fact I think it should be applauded. But it almost got us in trouble today, when I think the passing just needed to be slightly quicker. Had we been able to work the ball out a little quicker then there were potential opportunities for us to break. It only happened once, but as the Rotherham midfield pushed forward they left David Edwards free in behind them and McDonald was able to play a good ball to find him. Ultimately it didn't lead to anything, but there was a glimmer there of where the space was. 

- This was a game that Wolves dominated, and we will definitely play worse this season and win. We had three good chances in the first half, and Matt Doherty had an effort deflected over in the second when he maybe should have scored, but our lack of clinicalness was worrying. Dicko missed a couple of chances, but didn't add a huge amount to the team in the build up. But, I think it said a lot about Leon Clarke's current position that he wasn't brought on at all. In fact, Jackett's substitutions weren't the most inspired and, as I wrote at the end of last season, I'm not convinced by his ability to change a game. The two substitutes were waiting to come on when Rotherham scored their fortunate goal (although they had missed although good opportunity, hitting the crossbar in the first half), and were effectively like for like substitutions. While James Henry and Michel Jacobs have different styles of play to Bakary Sako and van La Parra, the substitution was effectively two wingers for two wingers. I'm not really sure why we kept both Lee Evans and Edwards on when Rotherham shut up shop in the final 10 minutes, and it was incredibly frustrating to see McDonald as the last line of defence, when he should be further forward looking to scheme an equaliser. Danny Batth finished the game as a striker, which is a little strange when we had two actual forwards sat on the bench twiddling their thumbs.