Mick McCarthy's message for keeper Pepe Reina

Wolves boss Mick McCarthy felt Stephen Ward's matchwinner to sink Liverpool was just reward after his harsh sending off at Anfield a year ago.

Ward scored the all-important 56th-minute winner last night past Pepe Reina - the man who ran 70-odd yards to complain to the referee to red card him for a second bookable offence in what paved the way for Wolves' 2-0 defeat on Boxing Day 2009.

"The sending off last year was disgraceful - I didn't think it was a particularly bad foul on Lucas," said McCarthy.

"Pepe Reina ran 70-odd yards to get involved and get him sent off but he was going anyway so it wasn't needed.

"If he recognised Wardy's face bearing down on him and sticking the ball past him for the winner then I'm delighted."

McCarthy heaped praise on Ward as an unsung hero.

"I'm so pleased for Wardy because he's that cliché of unsung hero," he said.

"He came as a centre-forward, then went to left-midfield, left-back and back into midfield. He's gone back up front and has been arguably our best player for the last three games. For him to get the winner is thrilling for him and great for all of us."

And McCarthy insisted Wolves deserved their first away victory of the season.

"We were the better team and deserved to win," he said.

"But we were hopeless on Sunday and so won't be getting carried away."

The Wolves believes playing 4-4-2 and pressing Liverpool high up the pitch was the key to victory.

"We went 4-4-2 at Man United, albeit using a midfielder in Dave Edwards, to stop them playing out," he said.

"We wanted to push up on them and stop them playing the ball out from the back.

"Thankfully it worked. If they'd got that goal early on it might have been different and I'd have been 'chewing' but it's great when it works."

Liverpool boss Roy Hodgson praised Wolves for their gameplan and determined performance.

"Credit to Wolves, they did well," he said.

"Their game-plan was good, they stuck at it and they were very physical in a lot of challenges all over the field.

"But I don't think we had the tempo or intensity in our game to be able to say we deserved anything more than what we got."

Liverpool were playing their first game for two weeks, but they didn't benefit from the break and Hodgson admitted their performance was the worst he's seen in his time at Anfield. "We were really hoping that after not playing for a while we'd give a great performance - but we did just the opposite," he said.

"It was probably as bad a team performance as we've given, certainly here at Anfield, and to compound the problems we gave them a goal as well."

McCarthy empathised, adding: "I'm not sure that not playing for 14 days helped Roy's team. We didn't play for a fortnight before Wigan and we were useless then.

"I think not playing can sometimes have an adverse effect on a squad."

The Kop took the unusual step of criticising their manager by chanting 'Dalglish' in reference to their legendary former player-manager who applied for Hodgson's job.

Hodgson admitted: "They made that (unhappiness) perfectly clear to us and I can only empathise with them.

"If I was a supporter I would be extremely disappointed as well with that performance, as are all the players."