Football: McGhee rues house call

Round-Up

A Few weeks ago, the Wolverhampton Wanderers manager, Mark McGhee, was so confident that the Molineux club would win promotion from the First Division this season that he declared that he would "put his house on it". For the sake of his family one must hope he had second thoughts about such a wager after his side were beaten 2-0 at Bradford City, a victory which lifted the Yorkshire side into second place.

The game was in effect over when the Bantams scored twice in six minutes at the end of the first half. A headed clearance by Darren Moore dropped near to Edinho in what looked like an offside position, but there was no flag and Rob Steiner gathered the loose ball and ran on to beat Mike Stowell from eight yards. Edinho set up the second, crossing from the right for George Kulcsar to head through Stowell's legs.

Charlton moved up to fifth by thumping Queen's Park Rangers 4-2 in the London derby at Loftus Road, John Robinson (twice), Steve Jones and Phil Chapple scoring for the Robins. The other Robins, Swindon Town, also won 4-2, a satisfactory recovery from last week's 6-0 drubbing at Maine Road.

Visitors Port Vale scored first, against the run of play, when Dean Glover's 30-yard shot flashed past Fraser Digby. But Swindon hit back with four, including a Chris Hay hat-trick, and move up to third.

Speaking of Maine Road, Manchester City lost 1-0 at Ipswich Town and are third off the bottom. "We had a lot more of the ball but didn't create enough," Frank Clark, the City manager, said. "We started to control the game, but at that stage you have got to go and grab victory. It doesn't just drop into your lap." The remedy? "We've got no money. The answer to our problems has to lie within our dressing room."

West Bromwich Albion dropped from second to fourth when they surprisingly lost 2-1 at The Hawthorns as Oxford United grabbed their first away points of the season.

Reading dented Sunderland's aspirations with a 4-0 win at Elm Park, Carl Asaba scoring two, while Stockport overcame slumping Portsmouth 3-1, Brett Angell claiming two goals. Tranmere Rovers beat Norwich City 2-0, the Canaries playing the last 28 minutes with nine men after Mike Milligan followed Rob Newman for an early bath.

Suspect defending in Scotland led to a blitz of goals in the Premier, nowhere more so than at Easter Road where Rangers came back from 3-1 down to defeat Hibernian 4-3. Marco Negri scored twice, taking his season's tally for Rangers to 18.