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{ On target: Carlos Vela's goal secured West Brom a crucial point as they and new manager Roy Hodgson look to avoid relegation Photo: ACTION IMAGES

Yet in his first game in charge of West Bromwich Albion Hodgson showed he has a quality that is even more valuable. Napoleon once said he preferred neither courageous nor brilliant generals but lucky ones, and, in his latest managerial reincarnation at least, Hodgson looks like being one of those.

He might claim his decision to send on Carlos Vela and James Morrison, who combined to cancel out Jamie O’Hara’s goal and draw the first Black Country derby ever fought out at Premier League level, was a managerial masterstroke.

But Vela’s strike two minutes into stoppage time came from a rebound when an otherwise impressive Wayne Hennessey spilled Morrison’s speculative shot. This was not planned or preordained, but really, really lucky for West Brom and their new manager, and the Hawthorns celebrated it as though they had just dealt Wolverhampton Wanderers a death blow.

Mick McCarthy, the Wolves manager, was left licking his wounds and said he was satisfied with a mere point, but it all seemed a bit false. Like overcooked pasta, Wolves remain stuck to the bottom of the Premier League, and West Brom are within touching distance of the relegation zone.

“When you equalise late in the game you feel happy, but when I look back on this in a few days I won’t feel so good,” Hodgson surmised.

The reality is that both teams demonstrated the kind of limitations which are sure to see at least one of them sent back to the Championship at the end of the season – a failure to convert the simplest of chances and the type of incompetent defending which creates them. West Brom have not kept a clean sheet since August.

Three training sessions are not enough to sort out such defensive shortcomings even for a coach of Hodgson’s experience, and Wolves found a way through just before the break when Kevin Doyle was body-checked outside the area by Gabriel Tamas.

Nenad Milijas had the wherewithal to use the free kick to square the ball to O’Hara, who struck first time with his left foot from the edge of the area into the top corner.

Hodgson said that one of his players – he would not name names – should have been level with the ball to cut off Milijas’s pass, but vaguely explained that Wolves, “through their organisation, managed to get rid of that player”. But he added that “there is not a goal scored where there is not a mistake”.

By rights Wolves should have taken a two-goal lead. Quite how Matt Jarvis did not provide Wolves with their second soon after the interval, only he knows. Tamas tried to head back to Boaz Myhill and failed spectacularly, leaving Jarvis to nip in for the simple task of volleying home. He scuffed wide.

If that was bad, Marc-Antoine Fortuné’s attempt to equalise soon after was pitiful. Peter Odemwingie found his team-mate just yards from goal and Fortuné only had to smack the ball from point-blank range past Hennessey. Instead the striker ended up hitting nothing but clean air. You don’t get much more incompetent than that.

Hodgson shook his head in disgust, and introduced Vela and Morrison. The latter sent a low shot at Hennessey, and the Welshman spilled the ball straight to Vela, who tapped in. The away support lobbed a smoke bomb – apparently smuggled into the ground inside a cuddly toy — into the Millennium corner, but the Hawthorns erupted in relief. Their new man has lady luck on his side.

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Labels: Albion, Bromwich, Carlos, gives, grounds, Hodgson, lucky, strike, Telegraphcouk, Velaaposs