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Wolves boss Mick McCarthy is trying to clamp down on Molineux’s rampant promotion excitement after his team moved within one win of a return to the Premier League.

The league leaders dramatic 3-2 victory at Derby was greeted by ecstatic celebrations from both his players and travelling fans, as they placed one foot in the biggest league in world football.

Those celebrations became even more intense as the results of chief promotion rivals Sheffield United, Birmingham City and Reading all came in, which left Wolves needing to beat QPR on Saturday to clinch only their second campaign in the much-vaunted Premier League.

But McCarthy, who was captured punching the air in delight at the final whistle at Pride Park, was quickly back in “grumpy” mode in an effort to banish premature celebrations ruining Saturday’s big day.

He said: “It’s a dangerous game on Saturday, because everyone will be wanting all that carnival stuff. Everyone will be arriving and giving it large and wanting all that ‘yahoo’ atmosphere.

“But we want to win, so it’s business as usual as far as I’m concerned. The players have all done their warm-down as usual and will be in the ice baths and the manager is still a grumpy so-and-so.

“I’ll still be the same until it’s mathematically certain if it happens.”

Wolves will still be heavily backed to win their seventh game in nine matches, against a QPR team plunged into fresh crisis by the exit of their FOURTH manager in less than two years.

In a further effort to down-size the euphoric comeback which left Wolves six points clear of the field, McCarthy admitted his side had struggled to beat the Rams.

He said: “I think we were very fortunate to win the game. But I’m also happy, pleased, relieved, delighted – all those adjectives.

“I was disappointed with the performance, but obviously happy with the result which tends to mask everything else.

“That’s as poor as we’ve played for a very long time but do you know what?  We had good front men who took their chances.”

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