Hughes blasts lack of effort as hungry Wolves tuck in
MARK HUGHES was angered by Stoke’s failure to match their Championship opponents’ hunger as Wolves earned their first FA Cup victory in six years.
Goals from Helder Costa and Matt Doherty gave Paul Lambert’s side an unlikely win after Hughes named a strong team who were unable to cope with Wolves’ youthful vitality in the first half.
‘There’s no excuses for that first half,’ Hughes said. ‘We were really poor. You can talk until you’re blue in the face about starting games brightly and at a Premier League tempo.
‘I was angry at halftime. We’re a lot better than that. I picked a team that on paper should have had enough quality to take the game away from Wolves.
‘As we know, games aren’t played on paper. You’ve got to put a shift in.’
Hughes hauled off the disaffected Bojan and record signing Giannelli Imbula at the break.
‘I could have taken four or five off. We needed more mettle in the middle of the park.’
The introduction of Joe Allen and Charlie Adam helped pep Stoke up and Carl Ikeme, the Wolves keeper, though not tested for 52 minutes, made ‘four world-class saves’ according to his boss Paul Lambert in a 15minute purple patch midway through the second half. But by that stage Wolves, improving since Lambert took charge in November, had their tails up, thanks to their vociferous 4,600 travelling supporters and another wonderful goal from Costa.
Jon Dadi Bodvarsson had already shot just wide twice when Doherty slung a ball across to Costa’s feet.
The on-loan Benfica star danced inside Erik Pieters and then Marko Arnautovic to curl home his eighth of the season.
Wolves had not won in eight Cup games, going back to a 5-0 home win over Doncaster in 2011, and Lambert had not always made the competition his priority.
But after Wolves, bolstered by a resilient performance from Mike Williamson in his first game for 14 months, had weathered the storm, they broke away to seal it.
Bodvarsson was brought down by Bruno Martins Indi on the edge of the penalty area and Doherty stepped up to curl a right-footer into the far corner of the net. How Wolves celebrated with their fans behind that goal.
Lambert gave Morgan Gibbs-White, 16, his debut.
‘We’ve been playing well for a number of weeks,’ he said.
‘We work hard in training and everyone’s got an idea of how I want to play.’