IT WASN’T Paul Scharner’s T-shirt that rubbed Wolves’ noses in it.

It was more the sight of Albion’s tippy-tappy possession football in the final five minutes which echoed Leeds United’s infamous passage of play against a bedraggled Southampton in March 1972.

Barry Davies’ commentary remains a classic: “Poor old Southampton just don’t know what day it is. Every man jack of this Leeds side is now turning it on. It’s almost cruel.”

It was too much for Stephen Hunt to bear as he clattered into Paul Scharner whose rather delightful backheel to Peter Odemwingie had given the Nigerian the opportunity to close the game a quarter of an hour earlier.

Substitute Hunt clattered into the Austrian and it’s probably around that time that the T-shirt appeared – a simple club crest, nothing more, but it was brandished whilst the game was still in progress.

And in doing so, the Austrian’s actions smacked of almost as much show-boating as Muhammad Ali against Floyd Patterson.

Mick McCarthy bore the look of an annoyed and angry man.

The last thing he needed was a Black Country defeat – Albion’s first win in the Premier League against their old foes – after four straight league losses. Now he is faced with the same predicament that faced Graham Turner 20 years ago when a side packed with quality in the old Second Division suddenly lost their way and sank to five straight losses before winning seven and drawing two of the next ten.

In truth, there wasn’t a great deal to choose between the teams.

Wolves had the ball for most of the first half but other than Ben Foster’s early save from Adam Hammill and Jonas Olsson clearing off the line from Kevin Doyle, there wasn’t a great deal of punch to their play.