Coventry 2 Wolves 1 - analysis

But just like turning 50, he couldn't do a thing about what had unfolded before him.

In an impassioned speech afterwards, the Molineux gaffer warned his players they risk a lifetime of regret if they waste the opportunity to pass up achieving something special.

After one win in eight, he is entitled to paint a stark picture to a squad whose confidence has gradually become worn down by the errors that seem to plague them every time they run out on the pitch .

The team, by and large, are playing well, even if they failed to force a single worthwhile save from Coventry keeper Keiron Westwood until he saved Sylvan Ebanks-Blake's last-gasp penalty.

They're still scoring goals at a rate that makes them comfortably the country's top scorers with 63 goals – more than two a game.

Perhaps just as importantly from talking to the players, they're very much united – a true team, whichever 11 is picked.

United in the belief that they can turn it around, they are unswerving in their conviction that the ability and character is there to do so.

But while scoring goals is never going to be a problem for this side at this level, their inability to keep them out at the other end is now threatening to derail their promotion hopes.

Maybe as one player said afterwards, if each player added just five or 10 per cent to their game, it would bring them swiftly back to form – and keep the back door shut.

Both McCarthy and his players talked of the desperate need to keep a clean sheet next time out and boy, do they need it.

Because if they do, you always fancy them to nick one at the other end.

Saturday's two from Coventry made it 40 goals against in 2008-09, and despite fielding a 15th different back four this season at the Ricoh Stadium – where they are still to win after four visits – they looked just as vulnerable to concede.

In a season where high hopes have been fuelled by a team high on energy and verve, it seems strange Wolves fans would want to borrow anything from last season's often stodgy fare.

But the defensive stubbornness that saw them keep 19 clean sheets wouldn't go amiss right now.

On paper, Richard Stearman and Co seem better bets than say Darren Ward – who actually played in 11 of those 19 shutouts – and Gary Breen.

But Wolves have sacrificed defensive meanness for a much more attack-minded game this term and it's been borne out in the goals for and against column.

Consequently, we have to live with this higher risk strategy.

But the manager would never have expected his positive approach to have gone hand in hand with such dodgy defending.

At least Christophe Berra looks like he has the natural and athletic qualities to play Wolves' strategy of defending with such a high line.

In a satisfactory display, McCarthy's newest and most expensive acquisition won plenty of aerial balls and showed a good turn of pace on the ground for such a big man.

But he is no miracle worker and it's going to take more than his arrival to turn this frustrating habit around.

Outside of Wolves' wobble, their rivals for automatic promotion are doing their best to throw away their big chance to cash in as well.

Punters could be forgiven for thinking this is fast becoming the title no-one wants to win.

The only goal Reading have scored in the last four games was by Wolves' Neill Collins as they drew at home to Preston – likewise Birmingham against Wolves' opponents this Saturday, Burnley.

In fact, all of the Championship's top six failed to win as the table bears an "as you were" look to it this weekend.

All of which means Wolves are six points clear of the play-offs with 15 games left, as well as boasting a vastly superior goal difference over third-placed Blues.

Wolves aren't doing a lot wrong, and while fans are understandably getting anxious, several judges in the game reckon they remain good value to go up automatically.

Few if any teams can match their energy, and with two-thirds of the season gone, certainly none can match their goal power.

One difference is that where perhaps they enjoyed the luck earlier on in the season, that fortune is suddenly deserting them.

How else do you explain Ebanks-Blake's first penalty miss for the club in virtually the last kick of the game?

The feeling in the visitors' dressing room was that Wolves should have left the Ricoh with at least a point.

But Coventry were just as tough opponents as they were at Molineux in October when they could and perhaps should have gleaned three points instead of losing 2-1.

And it was Wayne Hennessey who was the busier keeper, tipping Clinton Morrison's rising effort wide after Leon McKenzie had grabbed what turned out to be the winner with 15 minutes to go.

That came just three minutes after substitute Sam Vokes had cancelled out Michael Doyle's scrappy 24th minute opener with an excellent headed equaliser.

Vokes' goal was his seventh of the season and fourth in six games and the 19-year-old has surely never had a better chance of starting this Saturday's clash at Turf Moor, especially with Andy Keogh rested here and the recalled Chris Iwelumo extending his goalless run to 11 matches.

But that's the least of Wolves' worries at the moment.

The way Stearman – widely acknowledged as Wolves' best defender until Berra's arrival – was outmuscled and turned by Clinton Morrison for the first goal showed exactly why they're having the defensive difficulties they are.

Hennessey too seemed tentative in making the brave challenge required at the feet of Morrison for the first goal then McKenzie for the second.

And just before the winner, McKenzie again finished woefully after the impressive on-loan Sunderland winger Jordan Henderson – who set up Sky Blues' second goal – volleyed just wide with Wolves' defence at sixes and sevens.

They need to cut out those mistakes – and fast.

By Tim Nash.