Lyle Foster claims last-gasp win for Burnley after early comeback by Wolves

Thirteen and a half years ago there was a pitch invasion of home supporters when defeat by Burnley sent Wolves tumbling towards the third tier of English football. This time, it was Burnley staff and substitutes sprinting on to the pitch to celebrate Lyle Foster’s last-gasp goal as they moved five points clear of a relegation zone in which Wolves sit rock bottom, the last team in all four divisions still seeking their first league win.

Jørgen Strand Larsen, Wolves’ goal scorer and fourth captain of the season, went over to supporters baying for blood after this latest catastrophe in an attempt to broker peace. The South Bank’s priority target is the owners who have sold the club’s best players every summer but Vítor Pereira’s attempts to build bridges with fans he used to promise pints after the points when steering the club to safety last season was rewarded with chants of “You’re getting sacked in the morning”.

Wolves started with players from 11 different nations but it is the divisions between Fosun, the club’s owners, and the supporters which is dragging this famous old club back down into the Championship after eight years at this level. That and the lack of quality after the likes of Matheus Cunha, Nelson Semedo and Rayan Aït-Nouri were sold without being properly replaced.

The sense of unease infiltrated Molineux even before the goals and rain started teeming down. Home fans wearing their club-issue yellow cagoules in the Graham Hughes Stand must have known what was coming.

Burnley had only won two of their previous 44 top-flight games against non newly promoted sides but this was a relegation battle of a totally different hue.

Wolves had started well, with Rodrigo Gomes breaking from his own half to shoot, and sending over a great cross that rebounded off the Burnley goalkeeper on to Jhon Arias but out for a goal-kick. But any delayed pass or mistimed tackle was met with an anxious groan. They had already lost to both the other promoted clubs; going down to a third did not bear thinking about.

Even so, the simplicity with which Burnley went ahead was disarming. Quilindschy Hartman dispatched a long diagonal cross from the left on the halfway line and Zian Flemming side-footed home his volley from the edge of the penalty area. The gaps between the Wolves players on the transition were hard to fathom; the gasps from the terraces were more understandable.

Chants of “We Want Fosun out” immediately sprung out from the South Bank faithful whose frustration at the board’s annual diluting of the squad is bottoming out.

Scott Parker had done his homework on Wolves’ deficiencies. It was from another neat diagonal pass, this time to the left from Josh Cullen, that allowed acres of space in a Wolves midfield surprisingly lacking João Gomes, that Hartman volleyed his cross for Flemming to tap in his second goal. The Dutchman, who scored 14 times on loan from Millwall last season, could hardly believe his luck.

It was hard to see where Wolves could turn from here. Few doubt the qualities of Pereira, the manager who saved them from relegation after arriving in December last year, but the club starting a season with another winless run of nine games would leave the owners in between a rock and a hard place, even if it is of their own making. They have sold the team’s best players year on year, so is it any surprise when the team start to circle down the plughole? Is that always the manager’s fault?

Thankfully for the owners’ ears, Wolves forced their way back into the game by half-time. After Cullen was adjudged to have fouled Santi Bueno, Strand Larsen converted the penalty for his first league goal of the season.

Then deep into added time, after Jean-Ricner Bellegarde took responsibility to twist and turn his way into the best position to cross, Ladislav Krejci volleyed the ball back for Marshall Munetsi to head home the equaliser.

It was Burnley’s turn to feel their confidence draining away at the start of the second half. Letting slip a two-goal lead against the bottom team does not lift anyone’s mood. Arias curled a free-kick against the underside of their crossbar and Kyle Walker celebrated denying Wolves a two-on-one breakaway like he had scored. Dubravka had to save from Bellegarde’s belter before Rodrigo volleyed over from close range as Wolves pushed for their first winner of the season.

Instead it was Foster turning the ball past Sam Johnstone from a superb pass from Hannibal Mejbri, his fellow substitute, which decided this game. With two games against Chelsea, starting in the EFL this Wednesday, either side of a visit to Fulham, Wolves’ future is about more than just the manager’s.

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