Mick McCarthy, the Wolverhampton Wanderers manager, may be determined to keep it miserable at Molineux, but he is facing a growing struggle to keep dampening optimism in this increasingly expectant corner of the Black Country. His players continue to make life harder for him in that respect after recording a fifth victory in six Coca-Cola Championship matches, their best start to a campaign since 1962-63. Andrew Keogh, the Ireland forward, scored the decisive goal - his first since late April - to ensure that Wolves remain top of the table.

The manner of last night’s victory over Crystal Palace will have forced a smile from McCarthy, with his side displaying the resilience required for a promotion battle - in stark contrast to the one-sided nature of their previous two home matches.

“You wouldn’t expect me to get carried away with 40 games left, would you?” McCarthy said. “But no, it’s good to have a nice start and it’s a nice statistic. We’re enjoying it but we’ll be in on Thursday to concentrate on a difficult game at Preston [on Saturday]. I think we deserved to win the game and we could have put it beyond doubt. I’m delighted for Andy to score and that will give him a real lift.”

Sylvan Ebanks-Blake managed to make McCarthy look a little carried away with the game barely started. After dispatching nine goals past Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest, in their previous home games, it took 19 seconds for Wolves to stun their latest opponents. David Jones headed a pass by Keogh into the path of Ebanks-Blake, who was given an alarming amount of time and space to swivel and plant a shot into the bottom left corner of the net.

Palace responded almost immediately and Wayne Hennessey, the Wales goalkeeper, needed excellent reflexes to keep out a fierce drive from Paul Ifill. The visiting team dominated the rest of the half to unnerve Wolves and Ifill finally found a way past Hennessey just after the half-hour.

Kieran Djilali, impressive on his first league start, picked out Ifill in the penalty area and he found the corner of the goal, with the Wolves defence, and Hennessey, flat-footed.

Julian Speroni, the Palace goalkeeper, kept out the home side’s first effort of the second half, from Michael Kightly, and denied the same player in the 58th minute. But this time Keogh was on hand to head in from close range.

The excellent Kightly should have killed off Palace soon afterwards when he raced clear, but he blazed a shot over the crossbar. Still, a third consecutive defeat away from home in the league raises question marks about the South London side’s ability to fashion a promotion assault under Neil Warnock. “I can’t have any complaints, really, because we’ve lost three strikers in six days to injury,” the Palace manager said. “They were better than us, but you expect that with the start Wolves have had.”

Wolves (4-4-2): W Hennessey - K Foley, R Stearman, N Collins, S Ward - M Kightly, D Jones (D Edwards 29), K Henry, A Keogh; S Ebanks-Blake, S Vokes (M Gray 66). Subs not used: J Shackell, G Friend, C Ikeme. Booked: Ebanks-Blake.

Crystal Palace (4-4-2): J Speroni - D Butterfield, J Fonte, M Lawrence, C Hill - K Djilali, B Watson, S Derry, N Carle (P McCarthy 89) - S Scannell (L Griffit 66), P Ifill (S Thomas 76). Subs not used: C Fletcher, J Ertl. Booked: Hill, Lawrence.

Referee: S Mathieson (Cheshire)