After twenty minutes Kevin Doyle nipped in front of Heurelho Gomes and headed in a Nenad Milijaš cross. It was poor from the keeper, although the failure of William Gallas or Michael Dawson to marshal and mobilise the defence was no surprise.
Ten minutes later Jermain Defoe took a couple of steps and from 25 yards out whipped the ball round Christophe Berra. It hit the back of the net before Berra knew what had happened. Within five minutes Defoe had a second. After a quick Spurs break he had the ball on the left wing and when he got it back from Luka Modrić on the edge of the box he curled a stupendous shot past Wayne Hennessey into the top corner.
Defoe has been out of form and not scored nearly enough goals this season, but it is ridiculous that anyone could regurgitate the stat that he hadn’t scored in the Premier League for 10 months with a straight face. He has scored in the FA Cup, the Champions League and the World Cup in that time, a period that silently includes three months of non-playing time and another three months of injury.
The lead didn’t even last until half time, Alan Hutton demonstrating his capacity for calamity once again, pulling Milijaš down on the edge of the six-yard box with only Gomes between the Wolves player and the goal. Astonishingly Hutton wasn’t sent off and Doyle buried the penalty in the bottom corner.
As soon as the second half got going Jermaine Jenas got a vital touch a Benoît Assou-Ekotto ball over the top sending it into Roman Pavlyuchenko’s path. Despite a heavy touch he hammered a cracking shot past Hennessey into the roof of the net.
Milijaš hit the post with a shot along the uneven ground that Gomes got his fingertips to. Wolves players kept popping up in the area, too often unmarked, but they constantly missed the target.
Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon came on and added an edge to the midfield. Bale looked a little rusty, but still managed to create a handful of chances and force Hennessey into a close-range save. Sandro, who was excellent, capitalised on a mistake in the Wolves defence and laid off a very scorable ball for Defoe, but he the best he could do was hit the post.
With ten minutes to go Milijaš ‘s free-kick went sailing toward Gomes, Richard Stearman was also in the vicinity, Gomes got more of the player than the ball before it went in, but the referee gave a freekick in the keeper’s favour. If anything it was Gomes who’d committed a foul.
Luck like that should serve as a reminder of how easily a lead can slip, but we didn’t learn and Wolves equalised in the 87th minute. Matt Jarvis hit a cross into the box and despite the fact that Assou-Ekotto and Dawson have played together more times than I care to count Steven Fletcher got in between them and headed in.
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