Eastlands trip leaves Trap with plenty to ponder

MICK McCARTHY, the Wolves manager, admits the question he has been asked most frequently since the start of the Premier League campaign is – ‘What have you learned?’

Fitting, therefore, if the same question is turned onto one of his successors as Republic of Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni, an interested spectator at the City of Manchester Stadium as McCarthy’s Wolves almost managed to upset Manchester City’s expensively-assembled squad.

Trapattoni was in attendance, primarily, in his latest attempt to convince Stephen Ireland to return from the international wilderness – an effort that seems doomed to failure, although more of that later.