Wolves boss Mick McCarthy today urged his players to step up the training when they’re on international duty.

McCarthy believes a major factor in Christophe Berra’s two bookings and red card in last Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Fulham was the tired nature of his tackles.

Berra had travelled with the Scotland squad for the two recent Euro 2012 qualifiers, but failed to feature in the matches away to Lithuania and at home to Liechtenstein.

Jelle van Damme was also an absentee from the Belgium party that faced Germany and Turkey as he protected the ankle he injured on his Wolves debut against Stoke.

But both – especially van Damme, taken off with fatigue at half-time at Craven Cottage and is fitness doubt for the weekend – and Kevin Doyle, who played a full part in Ireland’s two games, were visibly tired, according to McCarthy.

And the Wolves boss believes his players must train harder on international duty to maintain the sharpness they get in training at Compton.

“When they go on international duty they prepare for games, and even if they don’t play, they don’t do any extra work,” said the boss.

“I’ve said to Kevin Foley before, that when they go away they need to top their fitness levels up.

“They don’t train as hard as they would do here. If they’re preparing for a game on Friday they’ll start doing a fair bit on Monday and Tuesday. But they’ll do less on Wednesday and then nothing on Thursday and Friday.

“They won’t do anything after the game and they might do a warm-down on the Saturday with maybe a little bit of football.

“So the intensity’s not there and I think they suffer from it sometimes. Doyle was knackered after his two internationals and I think that showed on Saturday.

“The same went for van Damme, who’s not had the games. He had 70-odd minutes against Stoke, missed the Everton game and less than 60 against Newcastle.”

McCarthy said van Damme’s fitness is a concern as he strives to adapt to the more physical demands of the Premier League.

“He’s admitted he’s found it physically tough,” added the boss. “We keep getting him back just to play in bits of games and then he doesn’t train.

“He’s been injured but we need to have him training all week and going out to play 90 minutes. He did well at Fulham but he was really tired.

“I didn’t need any heart-rate monitors to know that – I could see it. So I decided to put fresh legs on.”

McCarthy said that Wolves will need to be spot on at Tottenham this Saturday as any perception that Spurs had a soft centre has long since vanished. “There are no soft touches in the Premier League,” he said. “There aren’t any easy games in this league.”

The manager believes Spurs will follow Fulham in giving Wolves plenty of respect despite the 2-1 defeat at Craven Cottage. “Fulham didn’t just treat us like some second-rate team going there to get beat,” he said.

“We took four points off Fulham last season and they were well beaten here,” he added.

“We beat them 2-1 but we were considerably better and the other game was just a dour stalemate.”

McCarthy believes Wolves’ task was more difficult than many thought last weekend because he reckons Fulham haven’t been given the credit they deserve after reaching the Europa League final.

“People can talk about the difficulty of going to Tottenham but we’ve just lost to Fulham, who were beaten in the Europa League final,” he said.

“What an achievement that is.

“If that had been Tottenham, Manchester City, Liverpool or Everton, it would have been expected as the norm.

“It was Fulham and they’re a really good side.”

By Tim Nash