Wolves 1 Middlesbrough 2 - analysis

My guess is that any sense of FA Cup woe among the gold and black masses pretty much evaporated, as soon as the Molineux announcer uttered the words "Blackpool 2, Birmingham City 0" as fans filed out of the ground on Saturday evening.

No one who really has Wolves' interests at heart can surely criticise the players or manager Mick McCarthy for going out of the FA Cup. Not with 'Reading away' etched firmly into their minds, anyway.

So forget that Wolves are out – if you haven't already. Billed as the game to decide the fate of Boro boss Gareth Southgate, this tie was never going to provide too many headlines, given the way it fell flat for much of the second half after an encouraging start and reasonable last hour.

Yet despite the lower-than-expected attendance of 18,013 which showed where the fans' priorities are in these difficult times, the Cup has actually done McCarthy's squad some good this season.

Wolves have had that zip and tempo back about them for much of their last three games, two of those in the world's oldest knockout competition.

That win and performance at St Andrew's in the third round gave Wolves more than local pride and bragging rights.

After three games without a win and on the back of a potentially damaging home defeat to Preston, it also re-injected the players with the belief that has seen them reproduce the electric tempo that swatted teams away like flies in the early months of the season.

So rather than vilify McCarthy for the side he picked, the Wolves manager deserves praise for his selection.

After all, he wasn't exactly pitching in untried academy kids. No, the five changes he made on Saturday were all first-teamers with plenty of games under their belt - several have even been regulars this season.