Wolves -3 Leeds Utd - 1 Wolves took their first step towards defying the bookmakers and Premiership lore by winning a pulsating contest to end Leeds's mini-revival.If history is to be maintained, Wolves are already relegated, doomed by virtue of them propping up the Premiership at Christmas.

The bookies reflect that tradition by making Wolves 12 to 1 on to return to the Nationwide League; and those odds would have become even more prohibitive had they lost yesterday.

Victory, however, means only four points separate the bottom five clubs, a quintet that includes Leeds, whose five-game unbeaten run effectively came to an end in ignominious circumstances with the dismissal of Dominic Matteo 14 minutes from the end.

"We've given ourselves a fighting chance," said Dave Jones, the Wolves manager.

"We did our usual start by giving them an early goal, but you earn your luck in this game, and we got a break with their own-goal. I'm delighted for the boys because no one has let their head go down."

Wolves' display was summed up by the performances of two players, Henri Camara and Paul Ince.

One suspects Camara, a Senegalese international, is oblivious to the complexity of parachute payments and the prospect of trips to Gillingham that relegation would bring.

"Crisis, what crisis?" appears to be his mantra and he plays with an abandon more befitting champions than potential chumps. Not so Ince, for whom relegation would be an insult, especially in what is expected to be his final season.

Yet while they excelled, the game was tilted in Wolves' favour by Alan Smith, the player whose ability to score goals is viewed as being pivotal to Leeds's chances of Premiership survival.

Yet it was an own-goal by Smith that precipitated the Leeds downfall after yet more shoddy defending by Wolves gave them the perfect start.

Jones had cursed his team for giving Arsenal a "leg up". Here, the game was only three minutes old when more statuesque defending allowed Michael Duberry to rise unchallenged in the six-yard box and nod Ian Harte's inswinging corner past Michael Oakes.

It was the defender's second goal in four games and while coming too early to prove decisive, it dismantled the little confidence in the Wolves camp.

Passes went astray, the ball was treated as though red hot and their discomfort was summed up when Oleg Luzhny galloped 40 yards up the right flank to receive a pass from Sean Newton only for the Wolves winger to toe-poke the ball to Harte.

Yet Leeds similarly fell apart after Smith, in attempting to clear a corner from Colin Cameron, only succeeded in slicing the ball past Paul Robinson.

"A fortunate goal changed the game," agreed the Leeds caretaker manager Eddie Gray.

"It gave Wolves a big lift. This defeat is a setback but I never expected things to be easy, neither do the players. Like me, they know that every game is going to be a battle."

Gray had switched from a 4-5-1 to a 4-4-2 formation, teaming Smith with the ineffective Mark Viduka up front, to boost chances of securing a win that would have taken them nine points clear of Wolves.

But once the early presents had been exchanged, Wolves always looked the more likely winners.

They came close to benefiting from another fortuitous goal midway through the first half when a shot from Camara cannoned off Duberry on to the roof of Robinson's goal.

Wolves' inability to exploit what was looking an increasingly vulnerable Leeds defence before the interval, however, suggested they might have missed the chance once Gray had had the opportunity to give his team some half-time counsel.

Any advice he may have imparted proved futile shortly after the resumption when Steffen Iversen's looping header that followed Lee Naylor's free-kick found the gap between the crossbar and Robinson's outstretched arms.

Robinson went some way towards making amends shortly afterwards by keeping out a near-post header from Kenny Miller.

But any hopes Leeds harboured of saving a point accompanied Matteo to the dressing-room when a first-half caution was followed by a late one for a wild challenge on Naylor.

With Leeds committed in attack, Wolves scored again in stoppage-time after Camara ended a trademark run with a shot that hit Robinson's post before rebounding for Iversen to score his second goal.

Gray said: "I don't agree with the assumption that we are too good to go down.

"Our position in the league says it all. I'm not happy with today's performance. I felt Wolves deserved to win the game. But I would like to think this is just a setback.

"We've got to have the belief to win games and try to climb the table, but every game we play is going to be a battle.

"The players are obviously disappointed with their performance, but that's pleasing for me because that tells me they know they didn't perform as they are capable of performing."