Mick McCarthy is thankful that he still has a job in which to be undermined. The Wolverhampton Wanderers manager may have been dismayed when the club's owner, Steve Morgan, stepped on his toes after the club's 3-0 home defeat by Liverpool last week by barging into the dressing room to berate the players, but he knows that many other chairmen would have chosen an even less attractive course of action – and sacked the manager.
McCarthy has made it clear he would not welcome another intervention by Morgan, even if it were just to congratulate the players on their first Premier League victory in two months, which is what they achieved at Loftus Road. The pair spoke about Morgan's dressing‑room incursion the day after it happened, and when McCarthy was asked whether the owner had been to see the players following their victory over Queens Park Rangers, he replied pointedly: "No, I haven't seen him and I don't think I will be."
Lest that be interpreted as a breakdown in the relationship between Morgan and the man who has been manager at Molineux since 2006 and is presiding over precisely the sort of relegation scrap that he vowed to avoid after last season's narrow escape, McCarthy added: "Can I just say something about my owner: I've won three games in 22 and I'm still here as the manager of Wolves – that's some level of support and let's not forget that. When everybody's been trying to write negative stuff about me, he's been as supportive as anybody else so I owe him a debt of gratitude."
Despite being placed under intense pressure by his team's poor results this season, McCarthy was magnanimous enough to give much of the credit for the victory that lifted Wolves out of the relegation zone to his assistant, Terry Connor. The manager explained that, with their side trailing 1-0 after a debut QPR goal for Bobby Zamora, it was Connor who suggested the half-time reshuffle in which Kevin Doyle was brought off the bench to replace the right-back Richard Stearman, with Kevin Foley dropping back into defence so that Doyle could raid from the right.
Doyle had not scored a league goal since October and his form had sunk so low that he was omitted for the last three matches and even when Emmanuel Frimpong suffered an injury in the 21st minute at Loftus Road, Doyle was overlooked as Sylvain Ebanks-Blake came on instead. However, following Connor's suggestion, the Irishman was introduced at half-time and the tactical switch transformed the game even more than Djibril Cissé's sending-off in the 33rd minute. Doyle created the equaliser for Matt Jarvis within a minute of his arrival and constantly looked menacing before scoring the winning goal in the 71st minute.
"I was interested to hear one of the tennis players, I think it was [Rafael] Nadal, talking about how they can find these shots when it's most necessary and it's the same with good footballers like Kevin Doyle," said McCarthy.
"He's had a tough time where it's just not been happening for him but the class is always there and when I needed a good substitute, Doyle proved to be the one."
Doyle's return to form and the impressive performance of Wolves once they played with an attacking formation and mindset, as opposed to the torpid caution of a first half in which Steven Fletcher was frequently isolated up front, may encourage McCarthy to go on the offensive next weekend against West Bromwich Albion, rivals in terms both of geography and league position. "We can bring them back into the relegation mix or they can put us further apart, so it's a really vital one," said McCarthy of that match.
QPR will also contest a match with big implications for the bottom, because they travel to Blackburn Rovers. Their manager, Mark Hughes, will have to find a winning formula that does not feature the suspended Cissé.
That is an obvious frustration when in the half hour before his dismissal the Frenchman had linked well with Zamora and Adel Taarabt, the triumvirate that Hughes is counting on to get QPR out of trouble so that they can pursue the more lofty ambitions that their manager believes are tantalisingly within reach.
"I knew when I came here that the most difficult part of the job would be staying in this league," said Hughes. "Once we get through this and survive, which I have every confidence we will do, then we'll have some fun here."
No comments:
Post a Comment