Plymouth Argyle 2 Wolverhampton Wanderers 0
As the crow flies, it is about 207 miles from Molineux to Home Park.
Those 1,522 Wolverhampton Wanderers supporters who made the arduous trip must have spent each and every step of the return journey wondering just why on earth they'd bothered .
The club's so-called minimum requirement of reaching the play-offs? Well, there's an equally long way back for that particular ambition as well.
This was as poor a performance by Glenn Hoddle's team as there has been this campaign, incredible given what, at kick-off time at least, was still at stake.
It was an afternoon devoid of any craft and guile, any sustained attacking intent, and bedevilled by a series of formation changes which left several players offering puzzled looks in the direction of the bench and wondering just where they were supposed to be playing.
A miserable defeat, after a more wasteful loss against Sheffield Wednesday, and Preston's win at Coventry leaves Wolves eight points adrift of the play-offs with only five games remaining.
Preston's vastly superior goal difference effectively makes the gap nine, leaving the Lancastrians probably two wins short of cementing their top-six berth and condemning Wolves to a summer of crucial recriminations given the lack of progress made this season. Too often they have played second fiddle to limited yet hardworking opposition whose simplicity of gameplan puts Wolves' constant tactical tinkering to shame. Saturday was no exception.
Plymouth had scored only once in their previous six games, not once in four, but inside the first four minutes they could easily have broken that sequence when livewire winger David Norris twice put excellent crosses into the penalty area. Vincent Peri-card was denied by Stefan Postma and Nick Chadwick shot over.
They didn't have too long to wait when, from a training ground corner routine, Tony Capaldi pulled the ball back towards the edge of the area for Hasney Aljofree to expertly drill home.
With the wind at their backs, Argyle continued to sweep forward at will, with Paul Wotton firing a free kick inches wide from what should have been a penalty and Norris testing Postma again before the break. Wolves' response, from Kenny Miller and Paul Ince, was comfortably snared by Romain Larrieu.
Any hopes of Wolves making equal use of the elements after the break proved greatly unfounded as the Pilgrims continued their dominance, Wotton and Norris again peppering Postma's goal as Pericard threatened to run amok.
On 79 minutes Ince spectacularly headed Capaldi's corner into his own net, prompting many of those disgruntled travelling fans to leave as the others remaining launched into the first real grumblings of "We want Hoddle out".
The jeers were shrugged off by the manager who appeared as bemused by Wolves' miserable showing as his players appear to be with his tactics.
"I can understand every-one's frustrations," said Hoddle, who gave a debut to 19-year-old Daniel Jones at left-back.
"Everyone in that dressing-room is frustrated and everyone at the club is frustrated so of course the supporters will be too.
"That's as poor as we've played all season and yet we were fully prepared and knew exactly how Plymouth were going to play."
