Wolves boss Mick McCarthy has warned his side to be wary of Plymouth after comparing Saturday’s test to “a greyhound chasing a rabbit.”

Plymouth come to Molineux having won one of their last 16 games, that has seen them fall to 20th in the Championship and just three points above the drop zone.

Leaders Wolves are wobbling themselves after one win in 10, although they were buoyed by an improved performance in Sunday’s 2-2 draw against Cardiff.

McCarthy warned: “Don’t even suggest Plymouth is an easy game. There’s a greyhound going through a field and he sees a rabbit. The rabbit gets up and starts running.

“The greyhound fancies a bit of snap but the rabbit fancies his life. Who runs the hardest? The rabbit. That’s been my view on life.

“If you’re fighting to survive, like Plymouth are in this league, and they’re on about sacking the manager, or changing players around – it’s supposedly desperation stakes there.

“People fighting for survival aren’t easy to play against. It’s not a case of people turning up and sitting there waiting for us to beat them.

“It will be a very hard game because they’re fighting for their lives. We’re going to have to play equally as well as we did on Sunday and it might be a harder game than Cardiff just like Norwich was, or Doncaster.

“I’ve not had an easy game yet and I don’t expect any with 12 games to play.”

Wolves have three players treading a disciplinary tightrope. This weekend marks the cut-off for one-game bans for players on five bookings, and Stephen Ward, Nigel Quashie and Chris Iwelumo are on four.

If the trio escape punishment, the next disciplinary cut-off point is Sunday April 12, when 10 bookings leads to a two-game ban.