Southampton 1 Wolves 2

Who says loan players don't care?

Mick McCarthy's Championship pacesetters are very much a team, but neither of the two stand-out performers in Saturday's latest victory belong to Wolves.

After another classy, man of the match performance, Michael Mancienne may now get his full international wings before he has piloted a Premier League game.

The on-loan Chelsea defender travelled from St Mary's to Berlin in the hope of parading his talents before the nation for England on Wednesday night.

So convincing has Mancienne been in a gold shirt, that few who have seen the 20-year-old in action for Wolves would be surprised if he bridged the sizeable gulf between Championship and international stage.

Statistics can be used to prove anything of course, and a record of two goals conceded in his three starts as opposed to eight in the three that preceded his arrival in the team certainly tells part of the story.

But it's more than that. Players are boosted by having good players around them – they feed off the calm and effortless efficiency he has brought to the defence, and, in turn are more composed themselves.

With Mancienne and fellow loan man Carlos Edwards in such commanding form, Wolves should have been home and dry by half-time.

Classy, confident finishes inside the first 18 minutes by Chris Iwelumo and Dave Jones put McCarthy's men in a seemingly unassailable position.

For the stattos, it shouldn't have been any surprise to see Iwelumo scoring his 11th of the season and Wolves' first ever goal at St Mary's.

Iwelumo's third successive away strike inside the first 10 minutes made Wolves the third different club he has notched at Saints' new home after Colchester and Charlton.

Wolves in fact should perhaps have been celebrating a third strike of their own because if Kightly's momentum hadn't seen him brush into a defender before he lobbed home soon after, it would have been 3-0 rather than 2-1 on 21 minutes when Alex Pearce headed home Adam Lallana's corner.

As it was, the 43rd minute sending off of Jason Euell for a full-blooded tackle with Richard Stearman seemed to benefit the home side more than the visitors.

In a classic game of two halves, Saints enjoyed the better of the second period to prompt McCarthy's assertion that his side's merits for deserving victory were "hugely questionable."

Half-time sub Bradley Wright-Phillips hit the inside of the post, Lallana scooped over an unguarded net and David McGoldrick fired wide from close range.

But as they have proved on several occasions this season where the opposition has been found wanting in front of goal – namely Charlton and Watford away and Coventry at home – Wolves were superior in the area where it counts most: their finishing.

With an average age of just 19, Saints have some very young and talented, pleasing-on-the-eye footballers, but they have a soft underbelly which Wolves threatened to exploit to the full with in a dominant first 45 minutes.

Jones and Kevin Foley had efforts tipped over by keeper Kelvin Davis, while Karl Henry drove narrowly wide as Wolves carried on from where they left off against Burnley, certainly attacking-wise.

At the other end, Carl Ikeme's only serious first-half action was to block a David McGoldrick effort after a one-two split the Wolves defence.

After the break, it was a different story as Ikeme could only watch when Wright-Phillips hit the post after an uncharacteristic slip by Mancienne.

Wolves also survived noisy appeals for a late penalty from Saints' biggest crowd since their first home match of the season when Stearman and McGoldrick fell in the area. But the referee seemed to get the decision right as Stearman just got a toe to the ball first.

If nothing else during the last few tense minutes, Wolves showed a dogged professionalism as they hung on for their sixth win on their travels of 2008-09 and fifth successive victory.

This was a game they would almost certainly not have won last season. It's not always pretty, yet Wolves are learning how to 'close out' games in their favour.

By Tim Nash