Wolves 0 Reading 3 - analysis

If it was a result which was waiting to happen, no one expected it to come at such a cost.

That Wolves' electric start to the season would run out of power eventually was a matter of footballing law.

That they should run into a strong, pacey and perfectly-drilled Reading side on the night it happened only made the outcome more certain.

But that their first defeat of the season, their first loss in 14 games stretching back to April, should come with yet more wretched injury problems was an unnecessary extra kick in the nether regions.

The sight of first Michael Kightly and then Matt Jarvis, the two wide men who have played such a vital role in inspiring the team's surging start to this campaign, falling to hamstring trouble added to the sense of doom.

Doom which hung over this game from the moment the normally unflappable Wayne Hennessey flapped.

A rare, rare error from the Welsh international in the fourth minute gave Reading a leg up they did not squander.

Powerful in defence, where old boy Ivar Ingimarsson and his partner Andre Bikey were mightily impressive, and testing on the counter-attack, they picked off Wolves with two more second-half goals.

In contrast, nothing would go right for Mick McCarthy's team.

They could not get a break in front of goal and managed to exert only in fits and starts the kind of full-throttle pressure which had brought them 13 goals in their previous four Molineux league games.

In one of those "we win together, we lose together" gatherings at the mouth of the tunnel at the end of the match, McCarthy insisted Wolves left the scene of their first defeat as a group, heads held high and defiant. It was gesture appreciated by many fans who stayed to give them an ovation – and rightly so.

Amid the debris of a disappointing night, this was a Wolves side which has picked its way around some formidable difficulties in reaching out for its history-shaking start.

No Craddock, no Elokobi, then no Iwelumo and Hennessey along with the regular crop of casualties from the Championship battlefields.

Yet despite those serious setbacks, so successful have they been through the opening two months of the season they could afford to lose by three goals to the third-placed team.

A third-placed team fresh from the Premier League mind you – and still emerge from the punishment holding a five point lead over their visitors.

No, Wolves need to be celebrated and not censured today.

Had they been at full strength and flying, then maybe, just maybe, the story would have been different but the defeat should be shrugged aside – more worrying for everyone will be how they now cope with their first line of offence, the wingers, 'downed' in the same mission.

Kightly was struggling after half an hour, made it through to just before half time, but left before inflicting any further damage on himself to be replaced by Sam Vokes.

He must have a better chance of getting back before Jarvis, however, whose right hamstring 'pinged' like piano wire much later.

By then Wolves were two-down and barely 15 minutes were remaining but it was to Jarvis's credit that he fought furiously to get back, in an effort to stop the equally-swift Jimmy Kebe from breaking clear.

He does not deserve to pay for such devotion to duty with a serious injury and lengthy absence.

If Wolves are going to maintain their position of authority in the Championship, they are clearly going to have to do it the hard way.

McCarthy will have to come up with a new game plan for Saturday's trip to Swansea before he and his players can draw breath during the international break.

The squad strength built up from the scratch of two years ago is being put to a serious test.

Perhaps the key absence – something Reading's ever-rational manager Steve Coppell immediately picked up on – was that of Iwelumo.

His presence in an intensely physical game may have brought Wolves more control in the final third where, despite a huge effort from Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Andy Keogh, Bikey and Ingimarsson were the dominant forces.

Once Reading had that lead, that would prove the vital factor. They got it from what must be regarded as the Championship's version of the Rory Delap throw-in – right-side corners taken by left-footed Stephen Hunt.

Wolves struggled with them all night and when Hennessey got himself in a dreadful tangle trying to fight his way through the traffic to keep out Hunt's second of the game, the ball somehow veered off his gloves and into his net.

That, incidentally, was the seventh time this season Reading had scored from corners driven with such wicked swerve and dip by the Irish midfielder.

Wolves teetered on the edge of promising something in a rousing close to the half but their best moment would be the sweeping move upfield which finished with Kightly playing-in Keogh in the 32nd minute.

They had broken away from Kevin Foley's goal-line stop of Noel Hunt's header from another Reading set-piece.

Keogh had the angle but the pass fractionally lacked the momentum to give him the perfect chance – very much a symbolic moment for night. Marcus Hahnemann saved and Wolves were never as cutting or fluent again.

Instead, they were steadily, but assuredly, subdued by Coppell's side.

Back to those Hunt corners, one of which triggered an astonishing bagatelle in front Hennessey in the 55th minute from which, even now, it is difficult to recall how Reading didn't score.

From another in the 71st minute, McCarthy gambled by urging Jarvis and Ebanks-Blake to stay upfield and the visitors pounced on his ambitions.

Reading utilised the space and extra men and worked Kebbe into the byline for a cross the outstanding Bikey headed home.

That was the killer, the third from substitute Kalifa Cisse two minutes from the end an unnecessary act of cruelty on a beaten opponent.

Mind you, its message was clear.

For Wolves, the season so far had been a wonderful, extended fantasy.

Now for the reality.