Wolves boss Mick McCarthy has insisted the bigger picture of survival far outweighs the sub-plots involving their Premier League game with Fulham on Saturday.

Fulham arrive at Molineux for the first time since the fiery 2-1 defeat at Craven Cottage that saw seven bookings for Wolves and Christophe Berra sent off.

Bobby Zamora broke his leg in that game, sparking critical comments from Fulham midfielder Danny Murphy afterwards when he said that ‘the Stokes, the Blackburns and Wolveses – their players are so pumped up, there are going to be problems’.”

In addition, Steve Sidwell – who chose Mark Hughes’ side ahead of Wolves in January – could be involved for the first time against them since breaking Adlene Guedioura’s leg playing for Villa last September.

But McCarthy is only interested in the result for his team in their survival quest.

He said: “I’m sure people will drag up Danny Murphy and all of his comments and, as usual, I’m not interested in talking about it.

“I think you will find that survival is the bigger story with me – I’m not bothered about anything else.

“People can always find something in any game – such as one player went to school with someone else, or so-and-so went out with someone else’s girlfriend, or another player suffered a bad tackle from him or somebody got booked or sent off.

“None of that garbage washes with me at all because I played enough games against enough people to know that there were sub-plots in all of those.

“There is always a sub-plot which the media all like, but it goes right over my head. You just go and play.

“I don’t think players think too much about all that.”

As for Guedioura’s injury, McCarthy has never complained about it.

He said: “It happens. Adlene was most gracious about it. He’s back playing and that’s all that really matters.

“I never griped about it and I haven’t changed my view on it either.”

McCarthy insists he has only brought the Murphy issue up now in an attempt to deflect any media attention from the subject when he is quizzed about it by the national press on Friday.

He said: “I only mentioned it because it probably would have been brought up anyway.

“So I might as well get it out of the way – and I have.”