Wolves striker Kevin Doyle believes it is harder for newly promoted teams in the Premier League to earn penalties.

Doyle was denied what appeared to be a clear-cut spot-kick during yesterday's home draw with Aston Villa when he seemed to be pulled back by defender Richard Dunne.

It followed on from Mick McCarthy's side feeling they should also have been awarded penalties in the recent meetings with Sunderland and Portsmouth.

But Doyle is adamant he was right to be honest and to try and stay on his feet rather than go down looking for the spot-kick.

Referee Peter Walton eventually did point to the spot in the closing stages after Steve Sidwell had fouled Michael Kightly - and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake cancelled out Gabriel Agbonlahor's opener.

But Doyle said: "Is it harder for teams who are promoted to get penalties? I think so. Steve Coppell used to say it when I was at Reading.

"We were getting to to the stage where we were thinking 'we don't even get them in training now!'

"The one we got in the second half had been a long time coming because in nearly every game we've had a blatant penalty.

"Probably the ref went in at half-time and found out he should have given one to me at the start so when we did look like we should have got one in the second half, he gave it straight away."

Doyle insists he was correct in not exaggerating the challenge made on him by Republic Of Ireland team-mate Dunne.

He said: "They say try and stay on your feet and if you are fouled, you are fouled. Just trying to stay on your feet shouldn't alter that.

"If you go down too easily, you get criticised for that so I tried to stay up and he stopped me from scoring but the ref was having none of it.

"I was trying to stay on my feet as much as possible and be honest and to try and get a goal."

Doyle believes Ebanks-Blake will take confidence from his first top-flight goal after being a prolific marksman in helping Wolves gain promotion last season.

He said: "You could see he was delighted with it. It is just a big relief. I know the feeling, to get that off your shoulders, and it makes it a lot easier from now."

Wolves have reduced the size of their pitch this season by five metres in length and four metres in width, and it helped nullify the impact made by Villa wingers Ashley Young and James Milner.

But Villa skipper Stiliyan Petrov refused to use that as an excuse for his side's poor performance in contrast to when they defeated Chelsea the previous week.

He said: "Some pitches are getting smaller and smaller but we just need to adapt and make no excuses.

"When the big teams like Manchester United and Liverpool come here to Molineux, they won't have that excuse.

"They will try to adapt and win the game and that's what we tried to do.

"We were on the back foot. We were under pressure from the start. We couldn't keep the ball. Sometimes in games like that we need to take the sting out of the game and make the opposition chase the ball more.

"We are working on that and I hope in the future we will get wins from games like that."

Petrov added: "The manager said at half-time that he has never seen us play so bad this season - and that was right. We knew that without him even saying that.

"We knew it was not happening for us. He told us what we needed to change to make things better in the second half and we took his advice and we looked better in the second half.

"It's a long season. We will play different opposition, face different styles of football, and we just need to learn from that. We need to learn quick and maybe one or two season we would have lost that game.

"But we got the point we needed and, as long as we don't lose games, and keep adding points, for us it is great."