Match report: Slick City are soul survivors

R'n'B singer Beverley was the half-time guest at her home-town club and came on the pitch to wave to the crowd and knock a shot into the net.

It was the sort of clinical finishing Wolves could have done with - either her or Molineux legend Steve Bull, who got the biggest cheer of the day when he did the raffle.

The current crop of Molineux marksmen don't look a patch on Bully, and City can be thankful for that.

Because he surely would not have scored some of the gilt-edged chances the home side churned out during a first half spent almost entirely in City's half.

And yet by the time referee Tony Bates blew the final whistle, which could just about be heard above the hoots of derision, the Bantams could feel they had done enough to claim their third away success of the season.

Nicky Law was loathe to admit it afterwards but this was a real bonus. Stoke was the must-win game of the week and they did. Grimsby is the must-not lose affair on Wednesday.

But this was the game in between against a side once again nursing Premiership pretensions. And on the back of an eight-game losing run, few seriously expected City to come away with anything further than another travelling hard-luck tale.

Wolves, though, are the masters at shooting themselves in the foot and freezing on the big occasion.

Molineux's moaning minnies are a breed apart. Even the fella who directed us to the ground from a car park couldn't resist a whinge in his opening sentence.

That bunch are so used to failure, they come to expect it. So here's another episode to get them crying into the beer.

The Black Country is becoming City's most productive area of the country. Remember Walsall was the last away win way back in mid-September.

So what odds on making it a hat-trick next week when they return to these parts to play West Brom in the FA Cup? That will make a pleasant diversion from the day job of staying in Division One, a task that is suddenly going along extremely smoothly.

Six points out of six makes for a very merry Christmas and while nobody will be getting carried away, the past few days have shown overwhelming evidence that City are easily good enough to remain at this level. There are certainly more than three teams worse.

There had been no time to prepare. With Robert Molenaar and Jamie Lawrence injured from Thursday, Law and Ian Banks had worked out the tactics in the dressing room in the hour before the game. "That made it even more of a great result," said the boss.

Simon Francis was back in midfield and Peter Atherton, the sixth captain of the campaign, returned to the heart of the defence. He had replaced Mark Bower there against Stoke and stiffened things up in the nick of time.

On Saturday he was alongside Bower, who removed the frustration of being unceremoniously subbed on Boxing Day in the perfect manner with a confident performance.

The pair saw a lot of the ball despite the best efforts of Gus Uhlenbeek and Wayne Jacobs to shut down the supply lines down both flanks.

When Paul Ince decides to play rather than complain, the former England hardman can pass with the best of them and his through ball should have provided the first goal after ten minutes.

He threaded it through a needle to send on-loan striker Carlton Cole scampering clear on goal. His side-foot finish not only beat Aidan Davison but the left-hand corner of the goal by at least three or four yards.

That miss set the tone for Wolves' afternoon and the grumbling chorus didn't need encouragement to voice their discontent.

George Ndah, a player who has interested Law, should have scored from close range but shot weakly at Davison, and then Dean Sturridge clipped the top of the bar.

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But City, as is their wont of late away from home, stood firm under the barrage.

"It's always difficult coming to a great club like this with magnificent support," said Law. "If you let this crowd get behind them you are in trouble as we witnessed last year.

"We were one up until the 75th minute then they scored and all of a sudden it was like having 40,000 in here.

"But on Saturday it was object achieved at half-time. We'd slowed the game down, it wasn't pretty and we got them booed off. We then had to go out and put the other half of our game into action."

And they did within five minutes of the restart.

That was enough time for Sturridge to scourn another great opportunity before City caught them with a classic sucker-punch. Lewis Emanuel crossed deep, Andy Tod won the header and there was Claus Jorgensen to hook the ball beyond Matt Murray.

It was an ungainly finish but the man of the moment was not complaining after notching his second goal in successive matches. And Wolves could not believe it.

City braced themselves for the immediate onslaught but had no answer to the swift equaliser.

After Cole had wasted another header, Ndah decided to go it alone 25 yards out. He shaped to shoot, Michael Standing bought the dummy, and Ndah had the space to take another touch before lashing a left-footer screaming past Davison.

City, having waited so patiently for a first goal, surely weren't going to bounce back and do it again.

But within six minutes the lead had been restored from their best move of the afternoon.

Standing began it, Jorgensen jumped out the way of an ugly lunge from Ince to keep it alive, and Francis gift-wrapped Andy Gray's ninth goal with an inviting low cross along the goal-mouth.

"What a load of rubbish" became the theme of the terraces as the groaners delivered their verdict. City just grew stronger as they put the away-day hoodoo to bed in emphatic fashion.

Law added: "If you start getting at each other at a place like this you are soon going to go under. But to a man they stood up and although Wolves were raining it in on us at the end, the organisation was good and the players remained positive."

For City, 2002 has been as rotten as they come. But they could not have waved good riddance to the old year in a better way.