McCarthy: Wolves have become the hunted

Wolves manager Mick McCarthy admitted his Coca-Cola Championship leaders are there to be shot at after they crashed to a 1-0 defeat at QPR.

Martin Rowlands’ super-strike sent Wolves spinning to a first reverse in nine games and cut their lead at the top to three points.

But McCarthy will not be pressing the panic button despite watching his side collect just one point from their last two outings.

“I don’t go in for all that cliche stuff, a team draws a game and loses a game, it happens all the time,” he said.

“This has been a tough place to play for as long as I can remember, and they are fired up by the fact that we are top and they have a new manager.

“We are the top team in this division – I’m not saying we’re the best, but we are top – and that inspires other teams to play against you and we have got to live with that.

“We are still top. We didn’t play well for 50 minutes today but we did play well for 35 minutes and we just could not get a goal back.”

Wolves were uncharacteristically jittery at the back, while their 27-goal strikeforce of Chris Iwelumo and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake barely had a sniff.

Rangers, now up to seventh, were good value for their win in what was Paulo Sousa’s sternest test since he took over last month.

The former Portugal midfielder passed it with flying colours while McCarthy became the latest victim of the Manager of the Month curse.

Wayne Hennessey had already made fine saves from Patrick Agyemang, Heidar Helguson and Lee Cook, but he could do nothing about Rowlands’ 63rd-minute stunner.

The QPR captain collected the ball on the edge of the area and unleashed a vicious, dipping shot which flew over Hennessey and into the back of the net.

Rangers are showing promotion form at home, but are struggling on their travels and have not found the net away from Loftus Road for seven games – a statistic Sousa is confident he can put right.

“It was a great performance but more importantly we needed three points,” said Sousa.

“I’m proud of the players, they are working very hard and they have beaten the team at the top of the league.

“When you have time to work with the players the team becomes better, and you could see that in this game.

“But our next two games are away, where our performances have not been so good.

“But if my team create as many chances as they did today then we will start to score goals away.”