Analysis of Crystal Palace 3 Wolves 1

It may have been the FA Cup, but this was a Championship performance from a team threatening to go back there playing like this.

Thankfully, it's a home tie against Villa Wolves missed out on and not Premier League points at Selhurst Park last night.

Because Wolves can't afford any more of these displays.

"Outplayed, outfought, outrun and outworked" was how shellshocked boss Mick McCarthy described it to the Press.

Goodness knows what he said to the players during the hour he was taking the paint off the dressing room walls before he emerged, eyes bloodshot and face like thunder, to deliver an understandably curt three and a half minute postscript to an utterly forgettable night for Wolves.

McCarthy wouldn't say whether this was his team's worst performance of the season.

But he didn't need to. It was written all over his and the faces of the 898 loyal souls who braved the West Midlands' most arduous trip on the map.

Without a shot on target before Karl Henry's first goal in 74 games into the second minute of time added on at the end, this was as bad as Wolves have been in 2009-10.

Henry's left foot strike came on his 300^th career outing, yet the muted response to greet it told its own story.

Similar to the defeat at Blackburn by the same scoreline but worse because of the opposition, and inferior to the limp surrender to Birmingham when at least they showed some fight and backbone in the second half, they offered so little at Selhurst Park last night.

No spark, no moments to cling to to tell the Premier League team apart from the Championship one. Nothing.

McCarthy isn't one for holding grudges, but such was his upset, anger, disappointment and bewilderment at this collapse that he vowed to extend the inquest into the performance into tomorrow's training session, when normally the countdown to the weekend game would begin.

Thankfully, the crestfallen players have five days to recover from this hiding, because that was what it was – but it's not the physical exertions that are the worry here.

With Birmingham away on Sunday, McCarthy's thoughts will all be geared to how he repairs any psychological damage from such a lethargic performance that never really even flickered, let alone exploded into life.

Surely an urgency and tempo was needed if Wolves were to put a Victor Moses-less Palace to the sword.

But it simply never came, and if these games have offered the chance for any first team wannabees to forge their claims, then they blew their chance here.

It might be only first impressions and very early days, but it was a trying affair for Geoffrey Mujangi Bia and he could do little to convince us of McCarthy's view that he will be a very good player in the Premier League.

The Belgian's first start was shackled by his own leaden touch at times, and apart from a searing shot that continued to rise into the South London sky, he didn't offer much else.

The on-loan RSC Charleroi wide man is not alone in being a foreign signing experiencing difficulties however.

He would be joined in that category by stellar summer signings Nenad Milijas and Ronald Zubar.

Zubar continues to offer good and not-so-good while the only plus point of Milijas's performance last night was that he completed only his third 90 minutes since his arrival.

But like many of his team-mates, he struggled to make an impact.

If the first half was anaemic from a Wolves viewpoint, the second was simply catastrophic.

Blocked shots from Darren Ambrose and Nick Carle should have acted as warning signs before Carle's effort that fizzed inches wide before the break put Wolves on red alert for a brief siege that left them in a blur.

The visitors remained stuck in first gear as Palace bludgeoned them with three goals inside seven minutes, remarkably all of them coming from Danny Butterfield.

Normally a full-back, the 30-year-old who had only scored seven goals in 252 previous games for Palace, notched three in seven minutes.

His first in 48 games was a simple affair, nodding the ball over the line from point-blank range after keeper Wayne Hennessey palmed Matt Lawrence's header into his path following Darren Ambrose's corner.

For what it is worth now, the first goal should never have counted as replays showed there shouldn't have been a corner as the ball came back off Butterfield.

But there was no disguising the legality of the second that followed four minutes later.

This time Butterfield slid the ball under Hennessey after Alan Lee beat Christophe Berra in the air from keeper Justin Speroni's long kick to leave the unmarked Ambrose to help the ball on.

When the third goal followed on 68, it was almost like Groundhog Day – Lee flicking on a long punt by Speroni . . . you get the picture.

By then it was 'game over' and by the time Henry's left foot strike came when Kevin Foley had shielded a cross into his path, there was no time for Wolves to mount a fightback.

Few would say they would have deserved it anyway.

The hope now is that they can bounce back quickly and perform how they did against Liverpool, and after other dips in form this season.

After Blackburn, there was a heartening 2-1 win over Fulham, after Birmingham, there were victories against Tottenham, Bolton and Burnley.

Now they have to do it again.

With half a first team playing last night and no permanent signings on board, the concern is whether Wolves have that much more to give in terms of quality.

McCarthy knows his players better than anyone and perhaps then we should be heartened by the fact he is convinced his side will get better as the season goes on.

But with Michael Kightly and Dave Edwards still three weeks away from contention and Mujangi Bia and Adlene Guedioura still settling in, it's difficult to see things getting any easier for Wolves.

Every Premier League game requires such effort, and for all their endeavour, they lack that bit of magic that a quality signing would have brought them.

And they were reminded how much that was needed last night as Hull's draw against Chelsea left Wolves only out of the drop zone on goal difference, albeit with a game in hand on the Tigers.

By Tim Nash.