Wolverhampton just about managed to survive after an incredibly exhausting and difficult second season in the top-flight. The spirits were high at the start of the season after easily beating the drop in their debut campaign after promotion. The squad was kept intact and the early performances were quite encouraging. However, with the season progressing into the autumn, their form started to really collapse and a poor losing run left them in all kinds of trouble. The team was not playing that bad but some mistakes and lack of luck left them struggling at the wrong end of the season. Yet, Wolves were always capable of turning a great performance on their day and did so to come back from a goal down to beat Manchester City 2:1. It still failed to ignite their season as poor results against fellow strugglers were undermining their efforts against the bigger clubs. They had a good attacking team with Matthew Jarvis really coming into prominence but the defence was caught napping all too often and damaging defeats at the hands of Wigan and West Ham in the festive period rendered the famous wins against Liverpool and Chelsea during the same period less important that they ought to be. Wolves continued to spend the majority of the season in the bottom three with Mick McCarthy struggling to get any consistency from his side. Another high point, a becoming the first team in the league to beat Manchester United, at the start of February, looked to have finally delivered the momentum to steer themselves to safety after a good unbeaten run. However, the form of the team collapsed in early April as heavy defeats to Newcastle, Stoke and Everton left them reeling in the bottom three. It looked a tall order for them to beat the drop at that stage but McCarthy managed to get the best out of his side and wins against Sunderland and West Brom in consecutive weeks put them above the drop zone ahead of the final game against Blackburn. Wolves looked to have blown it all after conceding three goals in the first half at Molineux but managed to reduce the deficit to 2:3 and thus stay up by just a point. It was all done the hard way and McCarthy really went through the mill but at the end the job was done and Wolves will be playing in the Premier League next season.
