Wolves boss Kenny Jackett admits to helping hand
Monday 10 August 2015 16:00, UK
Wolves manager Kenny Jackett admitted his side's winner from Dave Edwards had been diverted in from the midfielder's hand as they defeated Blackburn 2-1 at Ewood Park.
The home side had the best of the opening exchanges but despite Jordan Rhodes hitting the post, Benik Afobe's cool finish after 28 minutes separated the sides.
A freak Craig Conway goal levelled proceedings 10 minutes later after Nouha Dicko had also hit the woodwork.
However, the game's controversial moment arrived in first-half injury time when Edwards appeared to direct a Dicko cross goalwards with his hand, much to the bemusement of the Blackburn players.
And after Wolves wrapped up a fourth successive league triumph at Ewood Park, Jackett said it came off the midfielder's hand.
He said: "It hit his hand, ball to hand. I wouldn't say it was deliberate but yes it definitely made contact.
"It was a whipped cross in and he's gone to head it... you can't have your arms by your side at that point but did it hit his hand? Yes it did.
"It was a great three points away from home. I thought we had spells of possession where we looked very good and the diamond midfield gave us an overload and really helped us in spells.
"There were other times where we didn't follow balls into their front man and they were turning and shooting too easy - and they've got shooting power. We were disappointed with that and we can do better defensively.
"We do need to improve that, but as I said, we had spells where we did look a good team and we want to base our game on that and try to take that forward."
The result was harsh on Blackburn, who went agonisingly close to equalising in injury time when new signing Frode Koita saw his goalbound effort tipped onto the post.
The hosts' disappointment was compounded by former striker, Rudy Gestede, making a goalscoring Premier League debut for Aston Villa.
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Gary Bowyer believes that sale changes the way his side have to play - and he also thinks Blackburn were unfortunate to lose.
He said: "The irony of Rudy scoring is that we've placed demands on the players to try and play a lot more football and I think we came out of the traps and started ever so well.
"Jordan's strike was a hell of a strike and it probably sums up the game for us. We're talking about inches and the small margins today.
"We've hit the woodwork twice, goalie has made a couple of decent saves, we have a penalty that is not given and there's massive controversy with what is eventually their winner.
"When you put all that evidence before me and ask 'were you unlucky not to come out with something?' Logically it tells you we were very unfortunate."
