Swain on the West Midlands derby

A wretched home performance, easily the worst of the season so far, left a Blues team which clung to their coat tails rising out of the Championship last season now eight points ahead in their respective struggles to stay in Premier League.

This match showed the gap to be fully justified. The Championship's promotion neighbours met with their mood and confidence travelling in opposite directions and, boy, did it show.

Wolves might have expected to lose to both Arsenal and Chelsea in their previous two games, but perhaps not by the punishing margins that aggravated a now winless eight-game streak.

In contrast, Blues have celebrated their exit from the cul-de-sac of the Sullivan-Gold regime with a renewed sense of purpose. Whether or not the promise of ambitious investment from Carson Yeung holds up, Alex McLeish's team displays a fresh sense of purpose which has yielded a five game unbeaten run and justified optimism for survival.

Wolves fans will now have a very different outlook. Although it is far too early to suggest the wheels have come off this campaign, the rivets are rattling alarmingly and the sight of the talismanic Michael Kightly limping away in the second half just when he was hinting his form could be returning was a suitably depressing image which summarised this derby experience.

McCarthy, having declared that his England under-21 winger was still off the pace of the Premier League after his injury-interrupted preparations for this campaign, called on him to replace Greg Halford after 30 minutes in an effort to put some spark into his outplayed team.

Before that, the Wolves boss had switched emergency full backs Michael Mancienne and Richard Stearman in an effort to get a handle on a game that Blues had dominated from the start. Stephen Ward would follow Kightly off the bench and on to the pitch at the interval, to bring a mercifully early conclusion to an uncomfortable afternoon for Michael Mancienne.

But frankly nothing the manager tried – and he cannot be accused of indecision – made any difference. Wolves found themselves in the dual grip of their opponents and some woeful 'percentage' football – if in doubt, hit it long – which is the classic sign of a team waning in confidence and conviction.

For the first time this season, we also had the smell of an uneasy Molineux which added to the players' discomfort.

Those supporters can only hope this was an aberration and not a sign of things to come but the manager, having taken comfort from his team's generally decent form levels in this first half of the schedule, brought an ashen face and prickly demeanour to his post-match media duties, looking every inch a manager shocked by his team's disintegration.

All of which, of course, was sweet music to Bluenose ears. They had an answer to everything Wolves attempted in all areas of the pitch and in the midfield control of Barry Ferguson and goalscorer Lee Bowyer, the game's most influential figures.

Selling clubs Cardiff and Coventry felt they had got 'top dollar' prices – a euphemism for forcing Blues to pay too much – for Roger Johnson and Scott Dann in the summer but their domination of Kevin Doyle and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake was total.

Such were the misfunctions of the players bringing the ball towards them this was no day to judge Wolves strikers but the lack of goal threat, especially from their champion of the last 18 months Ebanks-Blake, must be a particular concern for McCarthy.

At the moment, Wolves fans perk up more when they see Jody Craddock, scorer of the team's last three goals, heading forward for a set-piece.

What Wolves would give for the kind of goal with which Blues started and won this game. Sensing a case of shell-shock in Wayne Hennessey, McCarthy handed a first Premier League start to Marcus Hahnemann, whose opening touch was to retrieve from his net the exquisite chip by Bowyer which defeated him after just 127 seconds.

In building up to this opportunity, Blues displayed the kind of sharp, pacey advances which have gone missing from the home side.

A little step-over from the exciting if naive Christian Benitez, a cushioned pass from James McFadden, the ball then worked back to the edge of the area – and there was Bowyer, left in space by the movement of his colleagues, dinking a wonderful finish over Hahnemann.

Blues rarely dropped from that high level for the rest of the game. They lodged another five goal attempts that half, the best of which should perhaps have been finished off by Cameron Jerome, and could have had a penalty from a Matt Jarvis challenge on Dann.

If their second half display was more about ensuring Wolves could not launch the kind of revival which enabled them to retrieve last year's corresponding fixture, there was still no questioning their superiority.

Yet despite all of this, despite all their anxiety-riddled shortcomings, Wolves still conjured two plump chances which might have fattened their points total. A Jarvis cross after 12 minutes was met by Dave Edwards for a clear header from eight yards but he directed it wide. Similarly, Ebanks-Blake couldn't get another header on target at the other end of the game following a fine delivery from Richard Stearman.

A higher quota of chance-taking is one of the demands of the Premier League and Wolves simply haven't been up to it so far. While it is dangerous to draw any conclusions before the halfway mark, they simply cannot hope to survive this campaign without improving that element of their game.

Still, that's the least of McCarthy's problems today. He has a group of players to dust down and spruce up psychologically for Saturday's visit from Bolton. The games are still there for the season to be rescued.

All is not yet lost. It just feels like it.