Pictures and analysis of Charlton 2 Wolves 1

Still hope. While defeat at Charlton did nothing to enhance their survival prospects, Wolves go into their final home game of the season on Saturday still in with a shout of staying up.

Huddersfield's 3-0 win over Blackburn earlier in the day dumped Wolves back in the drop zone and, despite Peterborough's 3-1 defeat at Derby, they remained there courtesy of their inferior goal difference by two below Darren Ferguson's side.

It's that close, but history is decided on such margins.

Shades of Blackburn and 'Survival Sunday' two years ago?

Well, man for the big occasion Stephen Hunt will certainly hope so.

And Wolves' chances of beating opponents whom they tend to do well against – Burnley – at Molineux look far better than they do against bogey team Brighton away.

But with Peterborough and Barnsley also at home this weekend to Sheffield Wednesday and Hull respectively, it looks like going to the last day.

Things being so close, goodness knows what they are going to need against Burnley or Brighton.

The only conclusion to be drawn from another weekend of Championship drama was that Ipswich are virtually safe in 14th.

That still left nine teams in the mix for the final two relegation places.

What Wolves haven't got is a fat lot of options. If the last two games have proved anything, it's that manager Dean Saunders is trying to utilise his resources as best as he sees fit.

He admitted last week that without 15-goal top scorer Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Bakary Sako, who has 10, he hasn't got the firepower to convert the chances.

So he has taken a more conservative route, which has seen a 4-4-1-1 formation.

Wolves look less likely to concede – they still leaked two poorly-defended set-piece goals on Saturday – but also less likely to score.

Whether he feels he can bring back a patched-up and less-than-100 per-cent Sako is one dilemma going through his mind.

If he does, Wolves will take the game to Burnley with more gusto, but he also risks leaving the door open at the back. Decisions, decisions.

Either way, the reasons why Wolves are in this mess spread far and wide.

Whether they stay up this season or not, they will be debated long into the summer.

There is little point in dwelling on them now however. For now, they just have to somehow drag themselves through two final games and better the results of two of their rival strugglers.

But anyone who wanted a pointer of why they are where they are could do a lot worse than watch Saturday's game, where a draw would have been a fair result.

A typically robust Championship match like so many where effort was plentiful and quality as thin as the threadbare Valley pitch, there was so little between the teams.

If you knew nothing of these sides, you certainly wouldn't have said there were two divisions between them this time last year.

The way Saunders set Wolves up – to counter-attack – hinted at little goalmouth action, and so it proved. And yet that fatally was where they contrived to lose this game.

Karl Henry, who perhaps had in mind his last league goal, a last-minute winner at the Valley in March 2008, rattled the angle of post and bar with a dipping 40-yard effort in the 25th minute.

Apart from Ricardo Fuller's snapshot that flew straight at Dorus De Vries in the 10th minute, that was as close as anyone came until Dorian Dervite's scrambled opener on 63 minutes.

It's to the rejuvenated Kevin Doyle's credit that after failing to defend the corner which led to the goal.

He quickly made amends by glancing home the equaliser three minutes later from Jack Robinson's throw-in for his fourth goal in seven games.

But Wolves, who switched to a 4-4-2 formation for the last 20 minutes, failed to create anything apart from Hunt going in on keeper Ben Hamer after a superb run which sparked some handbags.

In truth, neither did Charlton until Jon Obika's 90th-minute winner, but while their play-off hopes were virtually over anyway, Wolves needed the points more.

Again Wolves were found wanting however and wondering whether the gods were against them.

A loose ball from Danny Green's blocked shot dropped invitingly for Obika to drill home at the far post for a winner that neither side deserved.

There was a look of desperation about Wolves as Saunders threw on Danny Batth as a makeshift centre-forward for the final four of the six minutes of time added on.

Predictably, the ball was launched forward time and time to the massed ranks of gold shirts in front of Charlton's penalty area in one last effort to forge an equaliser.

But like just about every Championship team's defence, the Addicks are used to heading long balls away and they happily did so until referee Roger East ended the misery.

It was another example of too little, too late from Wolves.

But there is still hope.

By Tim Nash