Mick McCarthy refused to blame the loss of eight players on Wolves’ 3-1 defeat at Swansea.
Wolves were without ‘front four’ Michael Kightly, Chris Iwelumo, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Matt Jarvis, as well as the sick Mickey Gray and long term injury victims George Elokobi, Jody Craddock and Matt Hill.
McCarthy said: “I don’t know many teams in our league who could afford to lose the players we’ve lost. To lose Sylvan, Iwelumo and Jarvis and Kightly does make a difference – as it would to any team.
“We missed our front four – it’s a lot of goals to lose between them, so we’ve lost a bit of firepower from what was our best team.
“They wouldn’t have done anything about the bad defending and I won’t bemoan my luck or say ‘it’s hapless Mick McCarthy without his best players’.
“I’m blaming our players on the pitch for the goals we conceded. There are two sides to every match and (Swansea boss) Roberto (Martinez) would have been thrilled with the goals he got and rightly so.
“As a beaten manager I was disappointed, because we conceded after 25 seconds, but we recovered. Their second goal was a good one from them, but it could have been stopped in its infancy.
“For the third goal, there was no competition to (Jason) Scotland, who was allowed to turn and smash it into the net.”
Jordi Gomez’s 25-second opener meant Wolves have conceded in the first 15 minutes five times this season after also trailing early on to Plymouth, Sheffield Wednesday, Charlton, and Reading.
McCarthy admitted his side had again made the worst possible start to a match.
He said: “It was an awful start, as was Tuesday (against Reading). We seemed to be all over the place, but having conceded, we got back into the game, played well and got a really good goal.
“Then just before half-time they got on top and got the second goal but we brought it on ourselves. They’ll think it was a well-worked goal – and it was – but we should have had him offside, which is disappointing.”
McCarthy handed debuts to George Friend and Carlos Edwards and admitted the pair found it hard going.
He said: “It was difficult for the debutants coming in. Carlos is an experienced player but he hasn’t had all that much football this season.
“It would be nice to come into a team playing well and for him to take it on, but he came in to a much-changed team and it becomes a bit more difficult.
“I was pleased with some of the football he produced. George had a difficult start and I swapped them because ‘Wardy’ (Stephen Ward) has been playing in the back four.
“George did some good stuff going forward, but again it would have been lovely for him to come in when we’ve got Jarvis, Kightly, Sylvan and Iwelumo, perhaps when we’d been flying and he could have filled in.
“It’s a lot easier to come into an established side.”
Wolves were backed by 2,600 fans – a record visiting following for the Liberty Stadium in its three years. McCarthy admitted his side had let them down.
He said: “The fans were great and maybe we didn’t do them justice with our performance.
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