Keeping the Wolves from the door

MICK McCARTHY is on form. The one-liners are being delivered at such a prolific rate during his meeting with the media ahead of Sunday’s game against Tottenham, you can’t help but wonder if, when he pulled on the red of Barnsley for the first time 34 years ago, he entered the wrong profession.

Perhaps it’s the 52-year-old’s way of alleviating the pressure that comes with being in charge of a side in the relegation zone. Or perhaps it’s just his way.

“What kind of Tottenham are you expecting after their week in Dubai?” goes the question.

“A very tanned and healthy looking Tottenham, I’d imagine,” says Mick.

“Dave O’Leary is pretty big over in Dubai at the moment.”

“Yeah, and I’m big in Japan.”

“What kind of form has Michael Kightly been in throughout his injury?”

“Oh, he’s been a grumpy little shite, like you wouldn’t believe.”

He laughs. Everyone laughs. But the serious matter up for discussion just can’t be avoided.

With 10 games remaining, Wolves are up to their necks in relegation trouble. They’re not drowning yet, but they’re going to have to get their stroke together pretty quickly to reach dry land by May’s end.

Last season, they stayed up with 38 points — a full eight points above Burnley in 18th — but this season is different. Work your way up from Wigan at the bottom, past West Ham and then Wolves, and in reality, everybody up to Stoke City in 10th position is part of the relegation battle.

Predicting a points tally good enough to avoid relegation, therefore, is something of a guessing game. West Ham went down with 42 points in 2003, Sheffield United with 38 four years later. It will, at a reasonable guess, be somewhere between those two points this time but McCarthy isn’t willing to partake in guessing games. “You’re asking me questions I can speculate on just like anybody else. It could be about who gets nervy in the end. I’m not even sure it’s going to be about the bottom three or four teams. I think somebody above us might just slide into it. You lose a couple on the bounce and all of a sudden you’re in the bottom three and asking where that has come from. There’s going to be a lot of twists and turns.”

Those twists and turns have been part of the roadmap of Wolves’ season. Looking back, it’s been more than a little absurd. By September’s end, on the back of a couple of physically abrasive encounters against Newcastle and Fulham, they became the villains of the Premier League, a manifestation of everything negative about English football. By Christmas, after a handful of victories and brave efforts against the league’s most prized possessions, McCarthy’s side had evolved into the plucky and admirable underdogs.

That’s just one part of their illogical campaign: the other comes when you forensically examine their results. Take their home form, for example. Wolves have beaten Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City at Molineux this season; trouble is, they’ve also lost on home turf to Bolton, Wigan and Stoke. They just don’t make any sense.

Assess McCarthy’s side by their results against the top 10 and they rank as the 13th best side in the division; measure them by their results against the other nine teams in the bottom half and Wolves are the worst out of all 20 teams. “Don’t ask me why we’ve done better against the big teams?” pleads McCarthy, apparently as confused as the rest of us about his side’s propensity for beating the Premier League’s best. “It’s the underdog, isn’t it? We raise our game. There’s lots of theories, whys and wherefores but I’m not sure which ones are actually true. But, yes, we’ve played well against the big teams. I don’t think anybody comes here and takes us lightly, not after the results we’ve had.”

Harry Redknapp has already been talking up Wolves in advance of tomorrow’s game, going so far as to predict that McCarthy’s side will “definitely” avoid relegation. “I’m delighted he feels that way,” says the former Irish manager. “I agree with him as well. There’s quite a few of them have said that. But there’s no such thing as being too good to go down. Harry’s up front and honest isn’t he? But he’ll give with one hand and slap us with the other. And it won’t bother him one iota whether we go down or not. But nice of him to say.”

After tomorrow’s game, it can be argued the real works starts. Between now and the season’s end, Wolves face home games against Everton, Fulham, West Brom and Blackburn, and a tough series of away trips to Aston Villa, Newcastle, Stoke City, Birmingham and Sunderland. Might McCarthy, then, ponder tightening up his side — for whom his Irish quartet of Kevin Foley, Stephen Ward, Stephen Hunt and Kevin Doyle has excelled this season — for the run-in? “We’ve played 4-3-3, 4-5-1, 4-1-4-1, 4-2-4, 4-4-2 at various points this season,” he argues. “We played Liverpool playing 4-4-2 and won, we played the same formation against Wigan and got slapped. There’s no rhyme or reason to what we’ve done this season but not getting beat is going to be vital between now and the end of the season, picking up points. However they come, in ones or threes.”