Mick McCarthy will urge his players to take out their Liverpool frustration on moneybags Manchester City tonight – and end the decade on a bang.

The Wolves boss and his players are still annoyed at the pivotal Boxing Day sending-off of Stephen Ward that wrecked their chances of getting anything at Anfield.

But the Molineux chief believes the confidence generated by three wins in five means there is the belief they can achieve a third successive home victory.

“Confidence doesn’t just get sapped away because of losing to Liverpool,” said the boss. “Anyone could see we were confident during the Liverpool game. They all feel like they played well and deserved better than we got.

“The way we’ve played, especially recently, sends out the right message to everybody.”

McCarthy says Wolves have ended 2009 on a high with 19 points at the halfway stage.

“If we’d been offered that before the start of the season, I guess we’d have taken it,” he said. “We’re certainly not pushovers – we’ve taken more points on our travels than anyone outside the top eight.

“We’ve had some luck, played well and the lads have stuck together.”

Record signing Kevin Doyle has challenged Wolves to end the year on a high with 13 days before their next Premier League game at West Ham.

“We’ve got virtually two weeks before our next Premier League game after tonight, so it would be nice to avoid defeat with our next game against West Ham a six-pointer,” he said.

Doyle believes Wolves can continue their Molineux improvement after beating Bolton and Burnley this month.

“Those two wins have given us our confidence back at home,” he said.

“So it doesn’t matter how many millions they’ve spent.

“There’s no problem with confidence, but that all changes if we don’t do a job tonight.”

Doyle believes Wolves can exploit City after they kicked off the Roberto Mancini era with a 2-0 win over Stoke.

“Hopefully their new manager will still be settling in – maybe we can catch them on the hop,” he said.