Wolves – Blackpool a must-win says Mick McCarthy
Thursday 24th February 2011, 11:29AM GMT.
Mick McCarthy today admitted his team are heading for their first ‘must win’ challenge of the survival battle.
McCarthy, back from scouting Blackpool’s pressure-easing defeat of Spurs, has targeted Saturday’s clash against Ian Holloway’s free-scoring Premier League adventurers as an essential three points.
Wolves are placing their faith in an 11-game run-in which includes only one match against a top-five team, Tottenham.
But beating Blackpool to keep Saturday’s opponents chained to arguably the most congested survival battle in Premier League history must be the starting point, says McCarthy.
“Regardless of Blackpool’s midweek result, it’s a game we have got to win,” said the Wolves boss. “I think it is a must-win — there’s no point playing it down.
“We were, obviously, looking to go into the game with three points from the derby.
“But, after drawing the first one, we need to make it four points out of the two matches. That would be a good return.
“Then the point at The Hawthorns becomes a really a positive result.”
Watching Blackpool score three — while Spurs boss Harry Redknapp was left bemoaning his team’s failure to take a stack of chances — was a reminder of what Holloway’s side are capable of in this rollercoaster season.
And McCarthy isn’t expecting anything different on Saturday despite the pressure and the high stakes.
“They’re a really good side and they’ve got goals in them,” he said.
“They’re conceding a lot of goals but they’re a threat, no question.
“They tend to play the same whether they’re at home or away.
“They’re a good footballing side and how I see them will determine how I set my team up.
“You certainly wouldn’t want to go behind to them because they can play, and if you’re too open against them, they can hurt you.”
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I guess its 4 5 1 then Mick.
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There all must win games lol… im right behind MM he’s the best manager we have had in 30 odd years, but MM and the players are only here for a short time were here for life and you ow us, lets do the talking on the pitch… come on wolves…
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We can beat them on saturday and turn our season around. A near sell out so lets get behind Mick and the lads. Come On You Wolves
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This article was brought to you by our new, occasional column, ‘No Sh*t Sherlock.’
The good news is, I will be at this one, and in the games I have managed to make it to this season, we have a record of P5 W3 D1 L1. Admittedly, the one we lost was Bolton at home, which was about as bad as it gets, but I’m clearly a rabbit’s foot.
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Stating the bleeding OBVIOUS Mick.
You will be telling us that relegation is a certainty NEXT.
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”They’re a really good side and they’ve got goals in them”
They finished 6th in the championship last year, have invested nought in players, their stikers consist of rejects from Blues and Southampton and they consistantly perform better than us.
Anything to do with coaching I ask?
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We shouldn’t be in this position, Mick. We should have been way ahead of them at this stage full stop. If you really have stated that this is a “must win” game (which we all know it is) what will you say next, if we blow it? I’ve never called for your head, and I won’t, but things are not looking good – club profit or no club profit.
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Its a fair call Solent , and there are not many of them on here. Totally agree
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Its a must win no other way to look at it,I think youve got that right Mick lets hope you get the team and tactics right you wouldnt want a Turkey farmer making you look stupid would you.
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fustrating season, sitll love wolves, weve always missed comanding leader from the back somone with big pressence.To keep up we need a clssier playmaker as well never ever replced the likes of kenny hibbitt
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It is a must win game but there isn’t a team in the league that we can’t beat on their day so come on u wolves!
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We cant sit back on saturday. Give the players a chance to attack. 4-4-2 is the way to go..
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So much pressure – i’m worried about this one. Blackpool will score so we’ll need at least 2. And we don’t score many do we?!
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No arguing with anything Mick says here. Actually, I think we will win this one, with Adam suspended.
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It looks like a 4-5-1 then by the interview. If that is the case, we either must bring Hammill back in or put Doyle out wide – he drifts out there enough times – and Fletcher up top!
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oneooronkwo – They have performed better than 8 other teams so far this season. No way have they performed consitantly better than those 8 teams below them though, they managed there first win in god knows how long against tottenham, if they leave it that long for a second, they will no doubt be down. They had a fantastic start to the season, but the second half of the season has yet to be so kind, i personally dont think they will go on another run of good results, and therefore i think they will be 1 of the 3 relegated.
Even though allot of people criticise Micks tactics, those same people im sure will be the first to admit that we have lost points due to silly mistakes by various individuals. I very much doubt that Micks tactics consist of all the mistakes we have seen thus far this season. I do think, in order for us to beat Blackpool we need to score more than 1 goal, which i think we will do if the players dont all sit back after the first.
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TIME TO ALL STICK TOGETHER NOW,ANY MOANING LEAVE TILL THE END OF THE SEASON WHEN WE SEE WHICH LEAGUE WE END UP IN.
WE HAVE A GOOD RUN IN UNLIKE OTHERS, SO LET’S BE OUR 12TH MAN AND ROCK THE HOUSE.
Few tickets remain for the game against Blackpool..
Gold and Proud!!
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Then do something about it for god’s sake.
Pick a team capable of winning, points, scoring goals, and not conceeding goals.
We are now sweating on beating Blackpool, this is where this man has taken us to.
Good luck to the team for Saturday.
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Hey-up,McCarthy`s waking up by the look of it.He Say`s the game against Blackpool is a “must win”game.Does he not think that the last few games have been “must wins”?Why is he proving that he is a useless idiot when we already know.Mr.Morgan,why do you keep sticking with this moron?think of the club and show him the door.
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Okoronkwo, when Blackpool get relegated I will remind you of that comment.
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Spot on No 1 and No 7, With Mick saying if your to open they will cut you to pieces ,sums it up, 4.5.1. again Mick is the most negative manager ive seen for many years ( although still far far better than Hoddle was ) Im very angry we’ve allowed David Jones to leave us on a free transfer in the summer. We did exactly the same with Dean Richards, but still havent learnt from it why? If DJ wasn’t prepared to sign a new contract earlier why didnt we put him up for sale. And try and get at least what we paid for him? Its been clear to the fans that there was no way DJ was ever going to re-sign for Wolves, we seem to buy players for a high price but sell them for peanuts or give them away. Going back to Saturday with must get at them and attack them like O’Hara playsand our midfielders must get into the ‘pen-box’more often than they do now,we must score more than 1-2 to win this game, lose this one and its going to very hard to hold onto our PL status. Then watch all the big money men/companies etc desert us like rats leaving a sinking ship. Then Jez/Morgan will be spitting blood you wait and see. UTW:
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Yeah, just like our last 6 matches ay Mick.
Change the record and stop trying to justify your job, cus you cor!!!!
do us a favour and keep your trap shut, you only wind the actual football fans up!!!
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How about trying to score in the last five minutes, instead of TRYING to defend either one goal or no goals? Keep the ball in their half, that should stop them scoring ay Mick!!
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To win on saturday Mick you have got to play Seb & Fletch upfront, remove henry from midfield and let ohara and milijas run riot with hammill and jarv on the wings bombard them from the off and be solid at the back,,,
even if it means playing 4-4-1-1 with the strikers switching forward and back to secure a must needed win,
Look at what we have thrown away
Newcastle 2 points,
blackpoolaway 1 point
bolton away 1 point
west ham 4 points H&A
wigan 4 points H&A
The tesco’s 2 points
a possible 18 points wasted by silly errors costly substitutions and playing of favorites, square pegs in round holes
yes i will carry on the support but as it stand to day i’d rather be 10 points better off and 4-5 million in the RED…
UTW
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16. – The league table doesn’t lie, they are currently 14th because they have more points, because they have won more games, simple as that.
I sincerely hope that we thrash them on saturday and that they do go down, and we stay up, I can’t see it with us playing 4-5-1 with a so called striker who will never score.
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Pick the correct team and we will, so no foley or henry!!
Play 4-4-2, with fletcher and seb and see what happens.
But we all no it will be 4-5-1 with foley and henry. Also MM when will you get your head around Miljas!! We were in full control agains the baggies with an hour gone, then you took Milijas off and they were all over us in midfield. As per normal, mind you he was lucky to start is it just me or what!!??
i would also like to no why you through it was a good idea to bring craddock on in midfield for the last 4 minutes!!?? That was amazing even by your standards!
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I,for one, am a huge fan of Ian Holloway’s approach to the Premiership. He can be rightly credited for many teams taking on the top four this year with more abandon than in previous seasons. His positive approach and enthusiasm for ataacking football is refreshing – with or without Charlie Adam, Blackpool will be no pushover this weekend.
I hope that our lads get the three points but make no mistake this is make or break time for us. MM has to come out with a positive approach. We must keep the ball on the ground and make many more forward passes than we have accomplished lately. And we must develop a much bigger goal threat instead of just trying to dominate posession.Hopefully, O’Hara will be our Charlie Adam this weekend.
COME ON YOU WOLVES!!!
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Why is it you think you have the divine right to just turn up and beat us? You may well beat us but please dont think you have the right to without scoring more goals than we do. Really annoyed this year how many times every other “bigger” team seems to think it would be unbelievable to lose to Blackpool – Ask Liverpool, Spurs, Newcastle etc how good we are and I think we have already beaten you once this year already? Good luck after Saturday.
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24)DaveyC, buy a new calculator, your sums don’t add up!
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28) You have done very well and for the record I think that you will stay up. In terms of you beating us…. correct but fortunate. Varney will never score another lucky goal like that again! A tough game on Saturday but man for man we are the better team and have got to scrape a win!
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Um Mick wasn’t Albion a must win game? Blackpool score goals for fun and we concede at every opportunity.This game is not the pushover half the people on here seem to think
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Well Seassider told us all there, didn’t he? The problem I have is that we have spent all year pretending it will be OK when we get the games against the top guys out of the way. Remember just before Christmas? We had that run against ManU, Arsenal et al. When it was over, we were in easy stgreet. We had Blackpool, Wigan and a variety of other also rans. But we crashed and burned and now we are in dire straits. This is a must win game, but then any manager worth the title should be telling his team every game is a must win game. Can you imaging Alex Ferguson telling his side it doesn’t matter if they win or not? Wolves returned a £9 million profit and as someone said it could be lost after two seasons oin the Championship. Then again it could be trebled if we stay in the Premiership. Over to you Mr Moxey. You’re in a better position to explain this to MM than I am.
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As someone who travelled to Blackpool on Tuesday night to watch my team I think I can give an unbiased prediction for this weekends game between Wolves & Blackpool. I think Blackpool used up all their luck on Tuesday because if Spurs had remembered their scoring boots we would have been ahead and not 2 down at half-time! Blackpool will miss Adam so much and thats why I take Wolves to win by the odd goal in 3 – O’Hara scoring the winner!
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Mick McCarthy might be making a rod for his own back here as well by saying its a must win game. He is going to put loads of pressure on your lads whereas Ollie will just tell our lads to go out and have a go – play without fear and attack attack attack. If you go a goal down early, your fans will get on your teams back and it might all get a bit much for some of your players. Its a must win game for both of us but its a mistake to come out and say it – if we beat you does it mean your down – of course it doesn’t, so why say it? It just creates a massive expectation from everyone that you will win it and if you don’t what’s Mick going to do – resign??
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We are at home, they have no Charlie Adam surely we go 4-4-2 from the off. I was at WBA Sunday and am convinced if we had 2 strikers on the pitch in that first half hour we would of done them. Ebanks/Fletcher to start as Doyle looks knackered and whilst I am at it give Zubar a rest and replace him with Foley.
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Hi everyone, it’s the Lord, your Creator, here. Just thought I’d pop in – actually, I don’t have to pop in anywhere, I’m omnipresent, so scratch that – to let you know that I am granting your Wolverhampton Wanderers the divine right to beat Blackpool this Saturday. So if any Blackpool fans show up to have a pop, just let them know that I got involved and sorted you out.
By the way, while I am here, be sure to drink at the roadside inn known as The Newhampton, it is the path to enlightenment and salvation.
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Lets hope we do play 4-4-2 against Blackpool. We have to start scoring more goals as we clearly have great problems holding on late in games so a nice 2 goal cushion (when was the last time?) would be sooooooooo nice. How to do that? Simple. Play the one man we have who is a goal scorer rtaher than a worker/good at holding up the ball/good at winning free-kicks etc etc i.e. SYLVAN EBANKS-BLAKE
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9 mil in the bank jez, that could of got us a couple of good defenders and we wouldn’t be where we are now..
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#4 PETENUTS, you are one of the few that make a lot of sense. I hope you good karma when watching the Wolves will continue as you know its a must win game!?
My record this season watching Wolves is
P5 W0 L4 – Marvellous! although having said, that you would expect the current team to be infront in two of the matches and then throw it away, would you?
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So its a must win says Mick!
Wonder what he will say if we don’t!
Sorry WHEN we don’t!
we never win 6 pointers! just the way it goes being wolves! we bottle it every time!
what does he care anyway? already been told he is in a job whatever happens!
Im off to have a snooze at my desk for rest of afternoon at work! got a big important job to finish but hey ho its ok peeps … Morgan is my gaffa! im safe as houses! ;-)
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petenuts, thats hilarious, i for one will vote for you to be employed as the new spike milligan.
i for one think we will beat blackpool!! 1-0 will do and no last minute goals conceded.
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Post 6 – Well said!
It’s embarrassing seeing a rag-tag, Blackpool bunch of Johnny-come-lately’s outperforming Wolves. It’s obviously no fault of Mick or his coaching staff because the real culprits are injuries, suspensions and bad luck -and we get a disproportionate slice of that, of course.
I was quietly confident of our beloved club taking 3 points from the Tangerines…until I saw Mick’s comments. Now I’m sweating in fear because they’re “a really good side with goals in them”.
Send ‘em out with no fear, Michael -and a positive attitude- and we might just beat those Blackpooling giants of the Premiership.
Just a shame Holloway aint leading our troops, I say.
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34 – I agree that saying this is a must win-match may put extra pressure on the team, but in my view, it is so obvious to anyone with two braincells to rub together that this is a must win-game that it might even send the wrong signals to the players if he said anything different.
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@39 and @41
Thank you both. I do try to mix pragmatic rationalism with absurdist humour and rigorous application of correct grammar and spelling, along with gratuitous plugs for my favourite pub. Some don’t take to it, generally in the first days and weeks after they have had their humour glands surgically removed, while others recognise me as the cheeky scamp with a heart of gold and satchel full of knowledge that I am. I’m here all week. Well, all weekend.
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do the right thing muppet if we lose go. i shall not be here much next season if you are
still here clueless. when you do some right you
then do 3 thing wrong.
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Listen fellow bloggers, remember the wigan game we were full of it then and what happened they came and gave us a slap as mick would say. No game is easy in this league and certainly not blackpool, but i am optomistic about this game and think my beloved Wolves to win 2.1.
PeteNuts, best blog of the day, nice to bring a bit of wit to the pages.
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Please attack and do not try to draw Blackpool onto our defence because we cannot defend and leak too many goals. Please play our best full back Foley in his best position.
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Pete. Excellent post as always.
However I am a bit confused. Has your weekend this week started on a Thursday?
When I was in the mob it used to be called on a 72hr pass. Just wondered.
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Pete, Oh wise one,
how erudite you do waffle. While I bow to your knowledge and taste as a hardened vintner, I have to say your powers of prediction leave a little to be desired. Are they seen through the bottom of a glass, perchance?
While we all would have loved to have witnessed your 1-6 sooth-saying of Sundays encounter fullfilled, your latest omnipotent decision, to award the Wanderers a divine right to win against Blackpool, has a distinct olorific pong about it, I have to say. I sincerely hope you don’t end up with egg on your face.
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The noddy guide to winning a football match:
Score a goal. Then, try and score a second one, rather than bottling it by sitting back and hoping that the dire opposition you are playing don’t score before the final whistle goes, whenever that may be!
I sometimes think that scoring a goal is about the worst thing we can do, judging by some of the performances this season…
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@49
O my son (and with a name like that, you actually could be), be not confused twixt my amusing comedy predictions (the 6-1 drubbing of the you know who) and my actual mathematical ruminations (38 points not being enough to stay up). The former should be treated as waffle, the latter should be ingested like, well, a waffle.
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So it’s a must win situation eh?
God, if I didn’t have the wise muppet to keep me informed I wouldn’t have known that.
I assume our master tactician has instructed our £6.5 mill super hitman to score a hatrick before half time. Then they will then pass it around in Blackpool’s half with crisp, clean passes to a corus of o lays from the admiring crowd, not that infantile hoof and hope stuff you seee from inferior outfits.
Blackpool, trying their hardest to score in injury time will have no chance owing to our stout defenders whose motto is “they shall not score”
Messrs Moxey and Morgan will then enter the pitch and announce “job done – mission accomplished” to a rousing cheer of approval.
What a pity I’ll wake up from this dream soon
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What is this B S its a “Must Win” game. Arn’t they all must win games?
Thats why they call it competition.
When a guy gives the ball away (Zuber)and costs a point, and another misses an open goal (jarvis) and the manager says “I can’t blame my players”, and “the team played well”. What Is going on????
I suggest MM you kick some players in the backside hard, bend their ear, and also get a new pair of glasses. This BS is making me very mad.
I expect my team to be a contender, not a basement team.
I am tired of seeing wolves perenially underperform for 20 years. I am not a young man anymore, when Wolves had a great team I was a schoolboy. Enough! I want to go to the pub and BRAG. Old Gold with silver, as in SILVERWARE. And die happy!!!
Wake up and get the 3 points, NO EXCUSES. And then the next 3 points…. Get the Picture!!!
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blackpool must win game guess hell go with 451 then and leave our top goal scorers on the bench hes a idiot couldnt beat a team who have conseeded 2 goals average a game,do wolves a favour and go and tek moxey with ya
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why does he keep playing the same BS everygame? if you ask the players i bet they say id rather play 442 then the crap 451 they r forced to play. mind u hes got a plan hes replacing jamie o hara with wardy
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if we can’t beat blackpool now we never will! no taylor fletcher and no charlie adam,come on mick 2 of their best players out lets get at em POSITIVE 442 PLEASE! fletcher and seb up front(you know the 2 highest goalscorers who are always on the bench)win this one and it will give us the fans and the players a big boost utw
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We should have signed DJ Campbell!!
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to win against blackpool we have to play an aggressive attacking game.
What that means is that we have to look to go forward at every opportunity for 90 minutes and create chances and have plenty of shots on goals.
We also need to get players in the box capable of scoring goals like SEB,Miljas,fletch,Ohara,doyle, rather that foley,ward or henry.
Micks mentality is that if we do go a goal up to drop off and defend the lead. We will definately lose if we do this. Blackpool are one of the highest goalscoring teams in the league and we are one of the worst teams for conceding goals.
The only time to drop off is if by chance we were able to go 3/4 goals up which I cant see.
This is a very tough game which could go either way. If we dont win, I will be looking at the shots on target and chances we have created.
A win would take us out of the bottom 3 for a least a day and put baggies under pressure as they play tommorow.
It we dont play 2 upfront today, why no play doyle as a winger, with SEB upfront.Doyle has shown no goal threat all season but holds the ball well and is more that decent on the wing, with Jarvis on the other side.
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