Match report by Martin Swain

And so after a two-week break for internationals, Molineux welcomed back the sharp, snappy, wing-driven attacking football to which it  has become accustomed this season.

But enough about Coventry. How on earth did Wolves smuggle three points out of this game?

Mick McCarthy’s team returned to the Championship summit with a performance which drew on last season’s virtues more than the swagger of their bold strides in the opening months of this campaign.  

Resilience, stubbornness, a victory for willpower and willingness when all else fails.

Their neighbours were the more impressive force at the beginning and the end of this contest but squandered their opportunities to give the returning Freddy Eastwood a comeback to remember.

Instead it was the table-leaders – and that sounds so good for Molineux fans you can’t write it enough – who had the match-winners in Freddy’s old mates Michael Kightly and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and  

Wolves were able to meet the first law of all successful teams by winning while not playing particularly well.

Kightly, benefitting from a peach of a pass by the maligned Andy Keogh, dug out an equaliser to an early goal from Michael Mifsud   before Ebanks-Blake turned on the juice to elude the excellent ex- Saddler Scotty Dann just once to fashion and finish Wolves winner.

Souvenir

Both were among a group of Wolves players short of 100 per cent after recent injuries and/or suspensions, leaving the home camp grateful to their other match-winner, a figure who through no fault of his own has been so low profile I bet he’’ barely sold a souvenir shirt at the club shop.

But ever since Matt Murray stepped in for the injured Michael Oakes in the promotion season, Wolves goalkeeping history has been marked by young men taking advantage of a colleague’s misfortune.

Murray lost out to Wayne Hennessey and now Hennessey has lost out to Carl Ikeme. For how long we, like Hennessey, will have to wait to discover but McCarthy’s decision to recognise possession as nine-tenths of the law was handsomely rewarded by a stand-out performance by the Third Man in the club’s goalkeeping department.

Full marks to the manager at this point. The easy call would have been to return Hennessey to the starting position, especially after the young Welshman had got himself back in form with his performance for his country in Germany a few days earlier.

But in what he believes is a core message of his management, McCarthy rewarded the less-celebrated Ikeme for his fault-free goalkeeping before the break.

He had done nothing to warrant losing his place; it is now his position to lose or Hennessey’s to regain via the training pitches while Murray prepares to renew his challenge with some badly- needed football on loan.

And twice Ikeme prevented Wolves falling two-down, a position they would most likely have been incapable of retrieving, before the interval and then twice prevented a Coventry equaliser during the away team’s threatening finale. 

Coventry will feel aggrieved at their fate but can only blame themselves for failing to take their opportunities at key times.  

Eastwood, welcomed back with some half-hearted stick, played the penultimate role in a sweet five-man move which finished with Mifsud prodding the ball beyond Ikeme in the sixth minute.

Although his difficulty has not yet reached Collins-esque proportions, Andy Keogh is going through the kind of sticky patch with some Wolves fans which asks questions of both nerve and character.  

Full marks, then, for the pass he picked out for the predatory Kightly as he eluded Coventry’s attention to level just before the break.

The winner came when Sylvan Ebanks-Blake powered his way past the defence just before the hour.

He crossed, ran out of play but then sneaked back on the pitch in time to force home the loose ball after Westwood had only been able to parry Kightly’s forceful shot. 

Coventry rightly nursed some grievance about that although it should be pointed out that TV replays suggested an Iwelumo effort swept home from close range a few moments later was scrubbed out by an incorrect offside call.