Time to map out a plan for Villa's future
- Says blogger Matthew Turvey
No gloss on Wolves defeat: Boss
Monday 18th February 2008, 12:59PM GMT.
Wolves boss Mick McCarthy did not attempt to hide from his team’s tame FA Cup surrender by admitting the Cardiff debacle was “as bad a performance as we’ve had all season.”
The fifth round defeat now leaves Wolves season hanging on their ability to reclaim lost ground in the promotion race.
But with a Cup competition blasted open still further by Liverpool’s shock exit, the loss of a quarter-final place will not be lightly dismissed.
Wolves enjoyed enough possession to make something of the game, even after Cardiff’s electric start, but only seriously threatened when a Glenn Loovens mistake gave Kevin Kyle a breakaway chance which the striker failed to capitalise upon.
He said: “We have missed an opportunity to even play well, or even compete, or even look like getting in the next round,” he said.
“If we had done that then I could have come away and thought at least we’ve had a valid attempt, but we didn’t.
“We never looked like winning that game at all. We barely scratched the surface.
“I’m embarrassed by that performance – we were very poor.
“It was as bad a performance as we’ve had all season that. In three of the last four games we have conceded early goals and so that is obviously a concern – certainly being 1-0 down after one minute 30 seconds doesn’t help.
“So that had a real effect on the game of course and being 2-0 down after 10 minutes. They were able to sit back and defend it and they did it well. They were far better than we were today.”
McCarthy added if he had had more substitutes, he would have taken more players off “and changed even more” and added: “I feel sorry for the fans who have travelled here and had to watch that.
“I’ll never know whether that shape or that team would have done anything because we were a goal down after 80 seconds.
“It hurts and that hurt should be taken with us into Tuesday night’s game against Scunthorpe.
“But do you think I enjoyed watching that? Do you think it shouldn’t be a concern when we have just played as badly as that and we have been beaten 2-0 and could have been more? Of course it’s a concern.”
Cardiff boss Dave Jones knows only too well what McCarthy is going through in trying to satisfy the demands of Wolves supporters but was naturally delighted at his own team’s performance.
Jones, whose Cardiff side are now in the quarter-finals for the first time since the club won the FA Cup in 1927, felt it was his side’s bright start which pushed Wolves into so many early errors.
“I thought we started brightly,” he said. “The first couple of minutes we made them make one or two mistakes and that set the tone for the first 45 minutes.
“We were in their faces, we didn’t allow them to get the ball down and play, and we dictated the tempo of the game.
“In the second half it was all about being professional and doing the dirty part of the job, making sure they didn’t score. Wolves and ourselves know each other inside out so if we’d have stepped off the gas for any length of time we’d have allowed them back in.”
Sponsored Links
Business Awards
Read the full story here
Full coverage of awards celebrating the region's best businesses.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Express & Star and Shropshire Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
LIVE traffic updates
Road, rail and airport - latest
Our new, live traffic and travel updates service - check before you set out.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new E&S app
Download the Express & Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
expressandstar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
“But do you think I enjoyed watching that? Do you think it shouldn’t be a concern when we have just played as badly as that and we have been beaten 2-0 and could have been more? Of course it’s a concern.”
Mick the difference is we pay to watch it whilst you get paid to make it entertaining.
I have no sympathy that you didn’t enjoy it.
You really are an idiot Mick and the sooner you leave our club the sooner we can start to recover.
Report abuse
mick, don’t you think you might have had something to do with it? Playing without wingers, having two holding midfielders and to top it off having the prolific (lol) kyle leading the line. You must start getting shape in the team and if that means you have to look to the younger squad members then so be it. you cannot put square pegs in round holes! Get a grip or just go!
Report abuse
Goal down after 80 seconds and is still wondering if the team/formation would have worked, come on Mick pull it round.
Report abuse
“I’m embarrassed by that performance – we were very poor”.
Remind me again, just who chose the team?
Time for McCarthy, Connor & Moxey to leave.
They ARE the Weakest Links,
GOODBYE!
Report abuse
BYE Mick !
some of your comments are a real insult to the intelligence of us fans !
Report abuse
SACK THIS MUPPET! THE WORST MANAGER WE HAVE EVER HAD HAS ASSEMBLED THE WORST SQUAD WE’V EVER HAD! WE NEED SOMEONE WHO WILL PLAY THE BEAUTIFUL GAME THE WAY IT SHOULD BE,PASS AND MOVE, NOT HOOF AND RUN LIKE OL’MICK! WHAT GETS TO ME THO IS THAT WOLVES FANS DONT LIKE THAT STYLE OF FOOTBALL. AS LONG AS THEYRE WINNIN THEY DONT CARE HOW.THATS WHY EVERYONE HATED HODDLE COS HE WANTED TO PLAY THE WAY IT SHOULD BE! U ASK ALBION FANS AND HOW ENJOYABLE MOWBRAY HAS MADE THEM TO WATCH.I HATE ALBION BUT THEYRE A CLASS SIDE AND THATS DOWN TO THE STYLE OF FOOTIE MOWBRAY WANTS. ID GET CHRIS COLEMAN OR PAUL INCE.NONE OV YOUR OTHER MICK STYLE MANAGERS LIKE ALLADYCE OR MCCLAREN-THEYD RATHER NOT LOSE THAN GO TO ATTACK
Report abuse
Time is up for Mick- he is a average
manager and we will never get up–
but down i 1.division with him,
let Souness get the job he newer relegatit wit a club!!
Report abuse
What does MM tell them at half time? I mean you are 2-o down, getting hammered, not a shot on goal and yet they come out and if anything they get worse. Now as a Manager you have seen the opposition’s style, tactics, strengths, weaknesses, you know who is weak in your own team, you are paid a lot of money to know what to do, I mean this is your job! So why week after tortuous week can he not make the tactical or team changes to turn a game in our favour? I accept you are never always going to get it right but to never get it right and them come up with hog wash excuses that defy logic is just unacceptable. Anybody can buy players, its knowing what to do with them that makes you a coach and MM seems clueless.
Report abuse
Interesting quote from Mick on the Wolves web site. That he played Breen & Craddock together as they had been the most dependable over the last 18 months. maybe true but how does that explain the loan move for Craddock to Stoke. have I missed something or am I just plain stupid !
Report abuse
The only team for tomorrow is:-
Hennesey
Breen
Craddock
Foley
Elokobi
Gray (left midfield)
Jarvis (right wing)
Edwards
Henry
Blake
Eastwood
subs: keogh,Gleeson, stack
Report abuse
Just one point to the “we fire our managers too often brigade.” If we appointed the right man in the first place then we woudn’t need to fire them in the second place.
McCarthy, Hoddle & Taylor. Anyone notice any common factor. Yes all former international managers who thought they knew all the answers when in fact they knew none of the answers. You would have thought after Hoddle and Taylor the Board would have learnt their lesson but not our Mr Moxey and he only backs the manager because not to do so would highlight what a bad choice he made in the first place.
Report abuse
Look what I found from the Wolves pages from August 16th last year:
Wolves boss Mick McCarthy has promised his Molineux men will get ‘better and better’ as the season progresses.
He tried to kid us then & he’s still doing it!
Report abuse
WWFC remind me of Ratner’s. The High Street Retailer went out of business after an ill-considered remark by their Chairman that their goods were ‘s–t’ and not worth the packaging. But in the decades they were trading their Directors made vast personal fortunes selling inferior products to the gullible mass public.
Make no mistake; there is considerable kudos for a businessman who is a football club director. It generates a lot of extra revenue for them. Wolves’ directors are making an awful lot of money for themselves selling a mediocre product to the gullible Wolves fans. They have no need to change policy. Why should they? To improve the product involves financial risk and that is a commodity they are not interested in.
To be a player amongst the elite today means buying into the global football academy. Arsenal recognise this. They realise finding class is the ‘numbers game’ and their own academy just cannot go through enough ‘bodies’ to unearth enough class talent.
For Wolves to be better than they are Steve Morgan must do three things.
Firstly; the club has to take a financial risk. How big it is and how it is managed is crucial, of course, but SM must underwrite it.
Secondly; The ‘maintain mediocrity and make money’ culture of the boardroom has to be changed. If that means replacing the current Board with dynamic, football ambitious people, then so be it.
Thirdly; a Director of Football must be appointed. An experienced football man with good judgment who knows the game inside and out. One thing is certain; the overweight accountant with high blood pressure must never again be permitted to make football decisions and appointments. They will always be influenced by the fiscal constraints to which he works.
Report abuse
I listened to the commentary on the game on Radio 5 live sports extra. They were laughing at us. Laughing at how poor we were. The manager seems to have lost any notion of who his best team is, what formation to play, and which partnerships to develop. The season is over. Only an incredible optimist could believe that we are going to play better than 6 teams above us to reach sixth in the league. The atmosphere will be unbearable tomorrow night unless he plays Eastwood from the start, or has been fired. Neither will happen. Tin hats at the ready. A very very sad situation. From 3rd to 12th in 3 months is so poor it smacks of entire-club negligence.
Report abuse
I’ve been digging a little deeper.
Look at these gems:-
http://www.expressandstar.com/2007/08/09/morgan-to-be-unveiled-today/
I’m trying to find out details of the “alleged” 12 month clauses in Moxeys/McCarthy’s contracts!
Report abuse
i agree with Sue D’
I think its time we really start looking at the club as a whole, things are just going in circles.. however i would wait until the end off the season and see what Steve Morgan has instore.
I believe MM should be given until the end off the season.. should he not reach the playoffs, which i dont think he will!! then he should be looking for a new job.
After a full year in the job hopefully steve morgan will see what us the fans see and make changes in the board room aswell as the playing squad.
we shall see…
Report abuse
Happy_Baggie said: Aug 10th, 2007 at 1:48 pm Back to the footy – The headline says Morgan targets europe… didn’t even know he could sing…
It started as banter, for us it will end in humliation!
Report abuse
I agree we can’t keep sacking managers. Been there done that and where has it got US?? No bloody where!!
However, the team doesn’t seem to have any shape – no spine i.e the critical path! Cardiff won because they went at us, never gave us any space to move, thats’ all. We have to do the same or die by the sword. I expect tomorrow night will produce a draw if we are LUCKY! We don’t pick the team the manager does and he selects the players to buy, I agree we need young humgry players, but we also need experience to educate those young players.
I have said this so many times and will say it once again. WE SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT JOE LEDLEY. YOU MUST LET FREDDIE HAVE A RUN IN THE TEAM. WE NEED BALANCE, BUT SEEM AS DISJOINTED AS YOU CAN GET!
HELPPPPPPP!!!!
Report abuse
McCarthy really has got some nerve – so he is finally embarrassed by the performance at Cardiff – has he not been watching the embarrassing dross that has been served up all season?
He is proving week after week that he simply has no ideas in any department except who to blame – apart from himself.
It really is understandable why Roy Keane blew up in the World Cup – after suffering Muppet Micks nonsense all season I can only applaud his actions. The ‘yes men’ members of the Irish squad who defended McCarthy then are very reminiscent of his defenders in the current Wolves squad.
If he really is the ‘decent, honourable man’ that so many of his apologists claim then let him do the decent, honourable thing and resign. Unfortunately as he is NOT either of these things he will cling on to his very well paid job until the bitter end. I just hope that it will not be too late for WWFC.
Report abuse
MICK MCCARTHY
ANOGRAM
HMM!CRACK CITY
MICCKY MARCH
THINK HE IS ON IT!
THINK HE SHOULD DO IT!
Report abuse
What r u all on about .. the sooner micks gone the better .. hes pickin the best side he can .. thers not much he can do with key players out .. hes played with no wingers basicaly because we had no wingers available .. were goin thru a bad stage in the season .. micks got hardley nefink to do with it .. yes he picks the team .. but its the players responsability to perform .. micks picked the best team he could .. what more could u want .. other than it to work .. give the man a break and let us regroup for next season .. Belivee ..
Report abuse
MM sucking up to the fans……..Hmmm.This speaks volumes.
I couldn’t beleieve it,one on one with our goalie..1-0 inside two mins.Go figure.
Report abuse
The same manager got you in the play offs last season you are 4 points off the play offs at this moment,the same as we are off automatic promotion.We are not looking to sack our manager.Ok your out the cup but thats a distraction for albion.
You could well end up playing us in the play offs again.No point in changing manager at this stage of the season.
Report abuse
21 stuw. Are you taking the p***? Are you telling me that we haven’t got any wingers in the reserves or in the youth teams. What about the likes of jones and gobern. I bet the likes of mark little or mark davies could offer better options even though they would be out of position. It seems he only played jarvis because s ward was injured otherwise he would probably still be on the bench! Stuw you must be like mick and actually believe the crap you are saying!
Report abuse
let me reply in basic terms to this post……
Stuw. said: Feb 18th, 2008 at 4:36 pm What r u all on about ..THE TRUTH!!!
hes pickin the best side he can ..A SIDE HE HAS PAID ALOT OF MONEY FOR
thers not much he can do with key players out ..KITES AND MURRAY?? ONLY TWO THERE!
hes played with no wingers basicaly because we had no wingers available ..BECAUSE HE SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT EXTRA WINGERS,LOANED A COUPLE IN OR NOT LET JONES GO ON LOAN!!!
were goin thru a bad stage in the season ..ONLY SENSIBLE THING YOU HAVE SAID!
micks got hardley nefink to do with it ..MICK HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH IT,HE BOUGHT THE TEAM,HE LOANED KYLE,HE PICKS THE TEAM,HE TRAINS THEM,HE CHOOSES THE TACTICS !!!
yes he picks the team .. but its the players responsability to perform ..PERFORM WHEN HE BUYS THEM THEN PLAYS THEM OUT OF POSITION OR DROPS THEM FOR DROSS AND STICKS WITH HIS YES BOYS AND SUNDERLAND REJECTS???
micks picked the best team he could .. what more could u want .. other than it to work ..WELL THAT WS MICKS JOB TO ACHIEVE AND HE IS FAILING
give the man a break and let us regroup for next season .. YES I AGREE GIVE HIM A BREAK,P45 AND SEND HIM TO THE SOUTH KOREA JOB THAT HE WAS GONNA TAKE!!! HE AINT BEEN THE SAME SINCE AND NEITHER HAS THE TEAM
Report abuse
Stuw,
Who was the chump, that let one of our best wingers go (McIndoe) for next to nowt,only to be the player of the season at Bristol City.
Report abuse
“Cardiff boss Dave Jones knows only too well what McCarthy is going through in trying to satisfy the demands of Wolves supporters .”
Why are we always made out to me over demanding fickle fans?
The squad is worth £25M Mick has spent £9M this year and we havent seen more than 1 decent match at home all season.
Believe me we havent become poor overnight, it has been apparent all season.
I applaud Morgans belief that backing Mick will lead to success, but that is a dangerous game at the moment
Report abuse
“Wolves boss Mick McCarthy did not attempt to hide from his team’s tame FA Cup surrender”
Thats because there is nowhere to hide and he had almost the full 90 mins to decide this
“But do you think I enjoyed watching that?” Does he think the fans enjoyed it. Does he now think he dropped clangers. Can he now see all the rest of the clangers he’s dropped for most part of the season
Why does he not play the players that they are best in ie midfielders in midfield. Strikers uo in attack. Why play 4-5-1 (and I stress the 1 in attack) but with 3 or four strikers on the pitch at the same time
The term lost the plot for quite some time now comes to mind
Report abuse
Post 23.
For once a baggies fan who talks sense.
We are playing like pansies. We are rubbish.
MM has made some really stupid mistakes. And Yes I am getting really naffed off….but Stourboggy is right.
We are having a bad time of it….Today it’s us and teams like Southampton and Look at the shambles called Liverpool.
Sheffield United…look at them…last year they were there……….this year they have gone completely bonkers….
Look at Leicester…. swapping managers every 5 minutes really seems to have worked hasn’t it….
Sack Fergie & tomorrow it could be Man U .
Tomorrow we could start a winning run and not lose until May and end up stealing 2nd place……..Yep Highly unlikely…Well flippin impossible actually….BUT you never know, do you…..We never thought the boggies would catch us in THAT season did we.
We arent that far off the play offs……UNTIL WE ACTUALLY CANNOT GET TO THE PLAYOFFS…why the heck don’t we actually shut up and let them get on with it.
Even the boggies have slipped up in the last couple of games……Out of Automatic and in the playoffs….another 3 or 4 defeats and they would be out of the Playoffs….
But i don’t hear the mass suicidal mutterings of any of their so called fans as loudly as I can hear the drivel which a lot of you talk.
Shame it takes a baggy to talk sense isn’t it.
Report abuse
Cornishwolf – If we end up playing Tesco’s in the Play-offs it will only be down to a change of management
Report abuse