Analysis of West Ham 1 Wolves 3

Seven and counting.

A seven-point gap from the drop zone with seven games to go for Wolves put their supporters in seventh heaven last night.

Seven points and seven goals from the claret and blue trilogy of Burnley, Villa and West Ham had thousands of Wolves fans dreaming of another season of Premier League football.

OK, so they aren't safe yet. But they are drawing ever closer.

It would just have to be Kevin Doyle's seventh goal of the season that set the tone for this remarkable victory.

But enough of the numbers game for now.

Let's reflect on the magnitude of this momentous victory.

Because there is no doubt that should Wolves' clinch Premier League safety, then Tuesday, March 23 at Upton Park will go down as one of the key dates and places where it was achieved.

How satisfying it will be for McCarthy – when the adrenalin has stopped pumping and he finally calms down enough to enjoy it – to look back on a near faultless performance from his players who executed his gameplan to the letter.

Wolves simply never gave West Ham a moment's peace on the ball from first whistle to last as they overwhelmingly deserved their second successive victory in the capital this season after Tottenham.

Commitment, and getting that ugly side of the game right has never been in question under McCarthy.

But how pleasing it was too to see a Wolves team out-pass and out-manouvre West Ham on their own patch.

And for once, a Premier League game where they were actually able to enjoy the fruits of their labours.

For with the score at 3-0 and half an hour left to play, that's exactly what Wolves and their manager could do.

It must have made all the effort worthwhile.

But it also gave us chance to absorb how big a win this could be for Wolves.

This was a game McCarthy believed West Ham deliberately 'targeted' in the belief that with a fully-fit team they could end their own poor run of four successive defeats, give their own survival hopes a shot in the arm and drag Wolves deeper into the relegation mire in the process.

But it never worked out like that, and for that, all of those who helped prepare Wolves' players as well as those who donned the gold and black with such excellence deserve huge credit.

No doubt the perception of McCarthy's that Wolves could be seen as 'easy meat' formed part of his team talk because the players' tails were up from the word 'go'.

There were any number of man of the match contenders for Wolves.

Marcus Hahnemann produced three worthy saves – one of which showed world class reflexes – while Jody Craddock and Christophe Berra headed and kicked everything away and Ronald Zubar covered every blade of grass on his flank, Karl Henry battled, harried and chased like an angry Alsation and the recalled Michael Mancienne made an art out of interception.

But it's difficult to look beyond Doyle or David Jones, who split the Hammers defence for the second and third goals.

Victory was also a huge triumph for McCarthy, who made the big news prior to kick off by making his first changes for seven games.

McCarthy recalled George Elokobi for Stephen Ward at left back and Mancienne for Adlene Guedioura in midfield.

But it was three more familiar names who combined to serve notice of Wolves' intentions with the first chance of the game in the eighth minute.

Doyle flicked on Hahnemann's long goal kick into the path of Kevin Foley, whose half volley hit the underside of the bar.

And when Doyle was presented with a similarly acute angle in the 28^th minute to give Wolves the lead, and he struck in clinical fashion after latching onto James Tomkins's mistake to race clear before slotting superbly across Robert Green.

It could have got worse for the Hammers before Wolves turned the screw in the second half.

With Wolves suddenly in the ascendancy and playing all the football, the hosts were unlucky not to concede a penalty 10 minutes before half-time when Radoslav Kovac dragged down Jones on the edge of the area.

West Ham responded with a superb run by the recalled Scott Parker, who sidefooted against the inside of the post, Hahnemann smothering his rebound before Zubar cleared off the line.

The game was still in the balance at this point, but if you believe anything about body language, then there was only one winner as Wolves ran out for the second half with their chests pumping, while the Hammers trudged onto the turf looking like they wanted to be somewhere else.

As it was, the expected onslaught from the hosts never came and instead it was Wolves who seized the initiative in such dramatic and clinical fashion that it ended the game as a contest.

After his goalline heroics at the end of the first half, Zubar suddenly found himself at the other end, where he raced onto Jones's slide rule pass to fire an angled drive across Green to make it 2-0 on 58 after Elokobi retrived a wayward clearance to pump the ball back into the danger area.

And Wolves were in dreamland three minutes later when Jarvis almost instinctively rifled home the third from the edge of the area, the in-form winger making the run that was picked up perfectly by the pass of Jones following an Elokobi chip.

With those clinical pieces of finishing, Wolves moved towards shaking off the statistic of being the lowest scorers in the Premier League as they moved level with Portsmouth on 28.

Amazingly, McCarthy's men have actually outscored every team apart from the top five on their travels - as befits a team with the best away record in the bottom half of the table.

To preserve it, Hahnemann made a superb reflex save to deny Franco on 78 then a more routine diving stop to foil Alessandro Diamanti eight minutes later.

As if it were needed, the United States international underlined the depth of pride and commitment flowing through the players when he could be seen raging at his defence after Guillermo Franco's lobbed consolation deep into injury-time.

But there was to be no denying Wolves a special result after such a special performance.

By Tim Nash.