Wolves 0 Stoke City 0

Mick McCarthy hailed the performance of veteran defender Jody Craddock who celebrated his 500th league appearance by helping Wolves take another step towards Barclays Premier League survival.

The 34-year-old Craddock and fellow centre-back Christophe Berra had to deal with a long throw bombardment – 24 in total – from Stoke midfielder Rory Delap.

But the clean sheet and home goalless draw moved Wolves six points clear of the bottom three with four games remaining.

Craddock played for three quarters of the game with his head bandaged up after an aerial clash with Abdoulaye Faye, but demonstrated why he has been offered a new contract by McCarthy.

The Wolves boss said: "Jody is great. He has been terrific. That is why I want him to stay. But I bet he hasn't played as well as that for 500 games.

"If he had played like that for 500 games he would have been at Manchester United or somewhere else.

"But Jody and Christophe were superb. We had to defend. Stoke make you defend."

McCarthy revealed he had spent only a few minutes on the training out working out how to stop the danger posed by Delap.

He said: "We had about four minutes on Saturday morning where we discussed where I wanted players to go. Since when it has become a surprise that centre-halves have to head the ball?

"The long throw from Delap is an effective weapon but, the more you make of it, you just put more fear into your own team."

Tony Pulis gained satisfaction from Stoke equalling their best run of top-flight away results for 30 years and they are now unbeaten in six games away from the Britannia Stadium.

The Stoke manager said: "I think it is only Chelsea who have got a better goals against record than us on the road so it is really encouraging considering the away form we had last year."

By JOHN CURTIS