Wolves boss Terry Connor not happy with Norwich City’s penalty decision

Wolves boss Terry Connor felt the penalty that condemned them to a fourth successive Premier League defeat was a harsh decision.

City skipper Grant Holt scored from the spot in first-half stoppage time, his second goal of the afternoon, to secure a 2-1 victory at Carrow Road after Eggert Jonsson was penalised by referee Mark Clattenburg – and also shown a yellow card – for blocking Wes Hoolahan’s shot with his left arm.

“I watched it back on the monitor. I thought it struck his arm, it definitely did that, but I don’t think there was any intention from Eggert to move his arm towards the flight of the ball,” said Connor, whose team have collected just one point out of 15 since he succeeded the sacked Mick McCarthy.

“So from that point of view, I thought it was a harsh decision. I thought it had to be intentional handball in the box for it to be a penalty. I didn’t think it was intentional at all.

“Whether he booked him or not was Mark’s prerogative.”

Connor felt bottom-of-the-table Wolves deserved some reward from a game where they led briefly through Matt Jarvis’ 25th-minute goal.

“It was a really good performance, real fighting spirit – everything that you’d want,” said Connor. “We took the lead and I thought we were well worth something from the game, definitely.

“We worked so hard, we set out with good intentions. In the first five minutes we were very, very bright, very positive. We had to weather Norwich when they came back for a spell. We did all that and then we took the lead and it’s disappointing that we couldn’t hold the lead for longer than 80 seconds.

“If we had done, I think it would have set a different tone for the game altogether.”

Connor admitted Wolves’ position was getting more and more difficult.

“It was awkward before today, but next week is Bolton at home and we can redress that,” he said. “We’ll prepare with the same determination, effort and spirit that we showed today and with a little bit more quality in the final third in terms of our crosses or shooting, the final pass, then we’ll be OK.”

Connor is still in touch with McCarthy but said there was no question of the former manager influencing his decisions.

“Not at all,” he said. “All Mick says to me about football is ‘You’re good enough, you go out there and do the job. You do it the way it should be done’.

“That’s the only advice he’s ever given to me in terms of looking after Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club. I’ve worked with Mick for 5� years, nearly six years. We are friends away from the game so we are going to speak to each other but on the football side of it, he says ‘You do it, TC, it’s your job’. He thinks I’m good enough.”