McCarthy Happy With Current Position as Blues Reach Halfway At Wolves Thursday, 21st Dec 2017 19:53 Boss Mick McCarthy is happy with the Blues’ current position of eighth in the Championship, two points off the play-offs as the season reaches its halfway mark on Saturday with a visit to his former club Wolves, who top the table by four points. “If that had been offered to me at the start of the season I would have taken it,” reflected McCarthy. “If it had been offered to me after the Charlton game [the final friendly which Town lost 6-1], I would have thought they’d a screw loose! “But prior to that we’d had a good pre-season. I saw [Charlton boss] Karl Robinson the other day and we were laughing about it and I said it was the best thing that every happened to us because maybe we’d had a decent pre-season and, I don’t know, maybe we we starting to think we were all right. “We had our wings clipped that day and it made me change my mind on a few things as well and we had a good result against Birmingham and subsequently won the next four, so it’s how you react to things and we - everybody in this building - reacted well to it.” Looking ahead to the busy Christmas period in which Town play five games in 15 days McCarthy says he has enough players to work with despite a number of injuries, mainly to central midfield players. “I’m not happy that I’ve only got 15 fit players this morning,” he added. “But I would hope that Tristan Nydam and Flynn Downes, they’re not senior players, but they’ll be coming back pretty soon. “What I’m happy with is that all those players are good players and when all is said and done I can only start with 11 and have three subs go on. We’ve got enough for now.” He says the spell will be demanding for those that play all those matches: “Physically tough. But I tell you what, it’ll be tougher for the ones that don’t play at all. They’ll be feeling a lot worse. “We had that spell before where we had to do it and we had good results, so I’m not worried about their physical fitness or how they’re going to cope with it. They’re good lads and we’ve just got to get on with it, that’s just the way it is. “There’s no point in whingeing about it. Let me tell you, if you asked the players they’d all tell you they’ll be fine.” McCarthy confirmed that he will have his squad in at Playford Road on Christmas Day: “We’re in for a small-sided game just to come in and make sure they do something the day before the game [against QPR on Boxing Day]. “I do believe it’s important that you get your legs moving and do something on the ‘Friday’, the day before the game. “It is important that and I think if you don’t do it and you don’t get the right result, you’re always open to be criticised and even in your own head you’re thinking, ‘We should have trained’. “I’ve had teams on Boxing Day and I’ve been asked by managers afterwards, ‘Were you in yesterday?’, ‘Yes, we were in, were you?’. ‘No, I gave them the day off’. And they’re always chewing and thinking they did the wrong thing. “It’s an hour, an hour and a half out of their day and if they’re anything like I was when I was a player I used to say, ‘Sorry kids, I’ve got to go into training’. And I got out the door and I was like, ‘Yahoo! A game of football on Christmas Day!’. It was fantastic. Then I’d come back in and I’d say, ‘Sorry, the gaffer had me in’.” Since taking over at Town McCarthy is yet to be beaten by Wolves, who sacked him in February 2012, nine months before he took charge at Portman Road, two wins having been followed by five successive draws, the last three all ending 0-0. The Town boss admits continuing that run won’t be easy: “They’re the best team in the league, I think. But even the best team in the league gets beaten sometimes.” McCarthy says a lot has happened at Wolves since he left them nearly six years ago, as it has at some of his other former sides. “There’s a few clubs I’ve left and they seem to have changed in the meantime,” he continued. “I keep looking at Manchester City and wondering if I ever played there. I think I did. “And Barnsley have got a Chinese billionaire now, so they’ll be another one I don’t recognise! “Wolves is a bit the same. They are doing very, very well. It’s taken them a while to get it right but they seem to have got the right coach in Nuno EspÃrito Santo. “And the players that they’ve brought in, heavens, they had a £13.5 million sub [Helder Costa] coming on the other day. “But what I would say about them is that they’ve spent money and it looks to me like it’s money well spent, Ruben Neves in midfield, for example. “They look a really good side, to have a really good team spirit and they’ve got that stoicism where they get 1-0 victories. “Despite having all this flair football, when they’ve needed to they’ve defended and won 1-0 and I’ve been impressed with that more than that they’ve beaten someone 5-0. “That’s when everything’s just turned out right. It’s when it’s not going right and you’ve got those players in your team, can they do it? And they have done. “They look the best team in the league to me. It’s going to be a tough old afternoon on Saturday.” McCarthy says he’s not envious of the resources made available to his latest successor at Molineux: “Not at all, I had my time there, I had a brilliant time. We won the league, I had two and a half seasons in the Premier League and had pretty much a great deal of success there. “I wasn’t bitter when I left and I’m still not now. I don’t look now and be envious of anybody and what they’re doing, I just keep enjoying doing what I’m doing.” Town’s last three away games have ended in 2-0 defeats at Aston Villa and Middlesbrough, in which the Blues were made to pay for defensive errors having previously played well, with a 1-0 win at Derby County sandwiched between them. “Concentrate, don’t give stupid goals away,” McCarthy said when asked what lessons could be learned from those matches. “That’s been the difference in those games. I didn’t see Middlesbrough having loads of shots at our goal, or at Cardiff [in October] for that matter. Villa, I thought we were the best team in the first half. “When we have stuck with it and concentrated and not given anything away, then we get results, which we did at Derby, because for all the possession they had they weren’t having shots at Bart either. They had the one when he made a magnificent save, of course, just after half-time.
“And that kept us in the game and so he’s concentrating. That’s the difference, that’s as good as a goal. And it’s just when we’ve dropped our guard, just switched off, blinked, whatever you want to say. And then we’ve conceded and it’s tough then. Concentrate.” He says those performances and the Blues’ increasingly impressive home form are a source of confidence going into Saturday’s match. “I’m not unduly worried about going anywhere, that we can go there and go and play," he insisted. "The pressure will be on them as well because they’ll be looking at us. It’s a game they’ll be expecting to win. But that’s not always the case, is it?” He dismissed suggestions that Town will simply go and park the bus at Molineux: “No, I haven’t tried to park the bus anywhere. Sometimes you get forced back, we did at Derby and got pinned back. “But defending is a part of the game and I don’t mind a 1-0 win anywhere. A clean sheet would be nice on Saturday.” Bartosz Bialkowski will be in goal trying to claim a second successive clean sheet with the back four set to be unchanged with Jordan Spence at right-back, Jonas Knudsen on the left and skipper Luke Chambers and Adam Webster at the heart of the defence. Callum Connolly will again be one of the two deeper-lying midfielders with Cole Skuse looking likely to miss out having suffered an ankle knock in the 2-0 victory over Reading last week. If Skuse misses out Kevin Bru looks set to make only his second start of the season with the Blues having few other fit central midfielders at present. While Joe Garner again looks certain to start as the lone out-and-out striker, McCarthy has a decision to make in the trio behind him with David McGoldrick fit again after his spell out with a gash to the groin. The Irish international was an unused sub for the win against the Royals with McCarthy opting not to start his eight-goal second-top scorer “Firstly, he hadn’t played for three weeks, that was the first thing in my mind,” he explained. “And almost equally the fact that Wardy had played well. “Somebody loses the slot and if somebody comes in and plays as well as Wardy’s done then he’s got every chance of playing, although Didzy was flying prior to his injury. So, a bit of both, one the injury to Didz and two the fact that Wardy had been playing well.” McGoldrick could again find himself on the bench at Molineux but in line to make a start when the Blues host QPR on Boxing Day with changes likely for that match. That would see Bersant Celina, 10-goal top scorer Martyn Waghorn and Grant Ward in the roles behind Garner.
Wolves currently lead second-placed Cardiff by four points and Bristol City in third by eight. At home they have picked up 26 points out of 33, winning eight, drawing two and losing only once, 2-1 to the Bluebirds in August. They are undefeated in 10 in all competitions at Molineux, nine in the league, and overall are unbeaten in their last eight, winning seven. Wolves are the Championship’s top scorers with 42 - Town are joint-second on 37 - and have also conceded the second-fewest goals, 17, while recording 16 clean sheets in all competitions, six in their last eight matches. Manager Nuno says his team has been built on this solid defensive platform first and foremost. “It’s always like that for me, it’s from behind — what supports the talent of this team is the quality of the character of our shape and our defence,” he told the Express and Star. “[The clean sheets] say a lot about the boys, the way they defend, not only staying in the box, the way they press, the way they cover their backs and react to the ball, with possession. It goes beyond statistics.” Ahead of the busy Christmas schedule Nuno gave his players a long weekend off following last week’s 1-0 Friday night win at Sheffield Wednesday. “It’s going to be tough,” he added. “Now it’s the moment to rest, that’s what I told the boys, stay home, get back the power and the strength of what family gives you. It’s going to require a lot — but we are ready.” The teams are fairly evenly matched over the years, Town winning 29 times (28 in the league), Wolves 27 times (24) and with 25 games (22) ending in draws. The Blues are unbeaten at Molineux since August 2006 when Jim Magilton's side was defeated 1-0 by a 10-man Wolves team led by current Town boss McCarthy. Both last season’s games between the clubs ended goalless. In March at Portman Road, Town recorded a fifth consecutive draw. The visitors came closest to breaking the deadlock late on when Jon Dadi Bodvarsson and Ben Marshall both struck the woodwork. In August 2016 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 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. Town loanee Dominic Iorfa is ineligible against his parent club, who he joined from Southend as a schoolboy. The 22-year-old has made 91 Wolves starts and two sub appearances. 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. Wolves centre-half Ryan Bennett was an academy schoolboy with Town before being released at 16. Winger Jordan Graham, who is currently on loan at Fulham, was on loan with the Blues from Aston Villa between November and December 2013, making two sub appearances. Saturday’s referee is David Coote from Nottinghamshire, who has shown 53 yellow cards and one red in 15 games so far this season. Coote’s last Town game was the 2-2 draw at Hull City last month in which he booked Blues - Knudsen, Webster, Connolly, Garner and Ward - and three home players. He also awarded the Blues a penalty but McGoldrick’s spot-kick was saved. Before that he refereed the 1-0 home defeat to Sheffield Wednesday in April in which he booked only Skuse. Prior to that he took charge of the December 2016 2-1 victory over Bristol City at Portman Road in which he yellow-carded Brett Pitman, Tom Lawrence and two of the visitors. In August of last year he refereed the 1-1 home draw with Norwich City in which he booked only one Canary and also ruled out what replays showed as a perfectly good Jonathan Douglas goal, his linesman having wrongly flagged for offside. Before that he was in charge of the 2-2 FA Cup draw at home to Portsmouth in January 2016, in which he yellow-carded Skuse and one visiting player. He also took control of the 0-0 home draw with Cardiff in October 2015 in which he cautioned eight players, Tommy Smith, Skuse and Bru as well as five Bluebirds. Coote was the man in the middle for the 2-2 draw with Brentford on the opening day of 2015/16 when he booked only Bees' midfielder Jota. Earlier, he refereed the 3-1 defeat at Cardiff in October 2014, in which he yellow-carded Tyrone Mings and two home players, the 2-1 defeat at Reading on the opening day of the 2013/14 season and the 3-1 home loss to Wigan later that campaign. During the season prior to that he took control of Town’s 2-1 defeat away against the Tigers which turned out to be Paul Jewell’s penultimate game in charge of the Blues - booking Stephen Henderson, Richie Wellens, Murphy and Andy Drury and no home players - and the 3-0 home victory over Millwall. Squad from: Bialkowski, M Crowe, Spence, Knudsen, Kenlock, Webster, Chambers, T Smith, Skuse, Connolly, Bru, Bishop, McDonnell, Ward, Celina, McGoldrick, Sears, Garner, Waghorn.
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