Town Face McCarthy's Former Club Wolves Looking to Turn Draws Into Wins Monday, 6th Mar 2017 18:11 Town face manager Mick McCarthy’s old club Wolves at Portman Road on Tuesday evening looking to add to their six-game unbeaten run but also aiming to record what would be only their second win in 11 matches in all competitions. The Blues have drawn each of their last four games 1-1 - the first time in the club’s history that more than three successive matches have ended with the same scoreline - and five out of their last six matches have ended level. The game earlier in the season between the sides at Molineux also ended a stalemate with neither side breaking the deadlock, although the Blues had a goal harshly ruled out and were much the better side. “We were,” manager McCarthy recalled. “I’ve been at Wolves, they talk about atmospheres at places and it’s great when it’s all going well but it can be hard to play there if it’s not. “I thought we played well that day, Murph scored a header and it was ruled out for offside. Let’s hope we play as well again.” The Midlanders are currently fourth-bottom of the Championship a point from the relegation zone having lost their last six matches in all competitions shortly after a headline-grabbing FA Cup upset in which they defeated Liverpool 2-1 at Anfield. “Cup competitions, eh?” McCarthy reflected ruefully. “Don’t they throw some surprises up and some performances that you wonder where they come from sometimes? “Is it as much to do with the team that’s playing the team from the lower league or is it just that you play upwards? I think it’s a bit of both. “Paul Lambert did get them going and they looked like they were going to be a force, to be quite honest. “They played well on Saturday against Reading. He made [six] changes for Reading and they played very well and were unfortunate to lose [2-1]. “I think it’s been a bit the case that they’ve been playing better than their results would testify to. “We’ve had a bit of that. It’s getting results, it doesn’t matter how you play, it’s getting results, certainly when you’re in that position that Wolves are in now, and still for us. We need to get results.” McCarthy, whose Blues are 15th, nine points off the bottom three, enjoyed his near-six-year stint in charge at Molineux. “I look back on my time at Wolves fondly," he said. "If you get the sack it never ends up as you’d wish and I’m still belligerent enough to think we wouldn’t have gone down because we’d been in that position before, we'd dropped into the bottom three but we had enough games to get out of it, certainly. “It wasn’t like the dressing room was against me, it wasn’t like Leicester where they’ve sacked the manager and suddenly they win two games and look brilliant. “Poor old TC was left on his own and I’m sure we were better together than we were individually. “But that’s all history. I loved my time there, I have no resentment at all regarding the way it ended. I had nothing but good times and good things to say about them, I loved it.” Among those facing the Blues on Tuesday is likely to be Richard Stearman, who played for McCarthy during his time at Wolves and then on loan at Town. “He didn’t play on Saturday but Mike Williamson was sent off, so maybe he will, or it might be Danny Batth,” the Blues boss added. “Stears is a great lad and he was great for me here and at Wolves.” McCarthy seems unlikely to make too many changes to his side having been pleased with recent performances even if he felt they were under par and second best against Brentford on Saturday. Bartosz Bialkowski will be in goal with Christophe Berra in the centre of the back three with skipper Luke Chambers to his right. One change the Town manager might be considering is switching Jonas Knudsen to left wing-back in place of Myles Kenlock with Tommy Smith coming into the back three. McCarthy has previously said that the wing-back role takes a lot out of players and, with the Blues going into their second game in eight days, could similarly be weighing up whether to switch Josh Emmanuel for Jordan Spence, although the former West Ham and MK Dons man will probably get the nod. In midfield, Emyr Huws is a doubt with the hamstring injury he suffered on Saturday and McCarthy has said he won’t risk the on-loan Cardiff man if there is any concern that his problem might be aggravated and lead to a longer absence. The Town boss will probably stick with the trio of Huws, Cole Skuse and Grant Ward if the Wales international is fit but otherwise Toumani Diagouraga will come into the side. Up front, 10-goal top scorer Tom Lawrence will again partner David McGoldrick. For Wolves, winger Ivan Cavaleiro is back in the squad having missed eight games with a knee injury, but central defender Williamson is suspended having been red-carded at Reading. Wolves manager Paul Lambert feels his side are playing better than their run of six successive defeats suggests. "When you're in the last third of the pitch you've got to play with freedom," he told the Wolverhampton Express and Star. "We get into great areas — it's that last pass or that extra bit of care or quality that's missing at the minute. "We have to get through this, we have to build. Hopefully that starts on Tuesday. "I've never known a situation where, looking back at the stats — and I'm not really one for stats — we're dominating the ball and the game. But the big stat is the scoreline." Lambert made six changes for Saturday's game at Reading and may again look to shuffle his pack. "We've got a lot of games to come, it's a relentless programme so I'll have to see how the lads are. There may be one or two changes, I'll see how they feel," he added. "I've a lot of time for Mick, I know he did great here, I've come across him a few times. "It'll be a really tough game, I've been to Portman Road a few times, I like going down there and it's a good place to play football. "The way Reading try to play and the way Ipswich try to play will be totally different, there's no right or wrong way. "We know it'll be physical and we have to pick a team that's going to stand up to it. "It's up to us to make sure we get above that line, get as far as we can go and then next year really rebuild this place. "We have to come through this as a club. We just need to finish off our dominance with goals." The teams are fairly evenly matched over the years, Town winning 29 times (28 in the league), Wolves 27 times (24) and with 24 games (21) ending in draws. In August at Molineux, Town were denied what would have been a deserved first away victory of the season after Daryl Murphy had a perfectly good first-half goal disallowed having headed home a Grant Ward corner, the game ending 0-0. The goal was apparently chalked off for offside with Freddie Sears standing in front of the goalkeeper, although he was onside according to replays. Earlier, Blues keeper Bialkowski had saved a Jon Dadi Bodvarsson penalty. Last time at Portman Road in November 2015, Jonathan Douglas and Murphy put Blues in front in either half but Wolves equalised twice via James Henry and Benik Afobe as the game ended in a 2-2 draw. Douglas opened the scoring in the 16th minute, Henry levelled seven minutes before the break, prior to Murphy regaining Town’s lead on 54, but Afobe hit back with a header 15 minutes from time. Blues manager McCarthy was the Wolves boss between July 2006 and February of 2012, helping them to the Championship title in 2008/09. Town assistant boss Terry Connor fulfilled a similar role during McCarthy’s time at Molineux — having joined the club in 1999 under John Ward’s management - before briefly taking over as manager after McCarthy’s departure. After a similarly short spell as his successor StÃ¥le Solbakken’s assistant, he left Molineux four games into the 2012/13 season, rejoining McCarthy at Town in the November. The Blues’ director of football Dave Bowman and scout Ian Evans were also both at Molineux until they followed McCarthy and Connor at Portman Road. Town defender Christophe Berra played under McCarthy and Connor at Molineux. Stearman spent the second half of 2012/13 on loan with the Blues from Wolves, making 15 appearances. He left Molineux for Craven Cottage in the summer of 2015 for a fee of £2 million but moved back to Wolves on loan in the summer. Wolves winger Jordan Graham, who is closing in on a return after a year out with a cruciate knee ligament injury, was on loan with the Blues from Aston Villa between November and December 2013, making two sub appearances. Tuesday’s referee is Darren Deadman from Cambridgeshire, who has shown 129 yellow cards and seven red in 38 games so far this season. His most recent Town match was the 0-0 pre-season friendly draw at Charlton in July last year, while the Blues are unbeaten in competitive games when Deadman is in charge. His last Championship game involving Town was the 2-0 home win against Bolton Wanderers in November 2015 in which he booked Knudsen and Chambers. Deadman’s two games at Portman Road prior to that were also pre-season friendlies, the 1-1 draw with FC Utrecht in August 2015, in which he awarded the Blues a late penalty, and the 0-0 stalemate with West Ham in July 2014. Before that he refereed the 2-1 home victory over Yeovil in September 2013 in which he kept his cards in his pocket throughout. Prior to that, he took control of the 1-0 home victory over Leicester in March 2013, the 1-0 win at Portsmouth in February 2012, the 3-1 defeat of Brighton at Portman Road in October 2011 and the 0-0 draw at Leeds in March of the same year. He also officiated in the 0-0 draw at Plymouth in January 2009, the September 2008 1-1 draw at home to Crystal Palace and the 2-1 home win against Burnley in February 2006. Deadman was also the man in charge of the abandoned friendly at Colchester in July 2011, which ended prematurely with the score 0-0 after U’s midfielder Andy Bond suffered a facial injury in a collision with his keeper Mark Cousins. Town’s only defeats with the civil servant in charge were pre-season friendly losses to a Wolves side managed by current Blues boss McCarthy (2-1) in July 2011 and at Stevenage Borough (3-0) in July 2008. Squad from: Bialkowski, Gerken, Chambers (c), Knudsen, Kenlock, Emmanuel, Spence, Berra, T Smith, Digby, Skuse, Huws, Diagouraga, Douglas, Bru, Ward, Rowe, McGoldrick, Lawrence, Sears, Pitman, Moore.
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