McCarthy defiant as weakened Wolves lose to United

Wolves manager Mick McCarthy insisted he had no regrets about changing his entire outfield line-up for the 3-0 Premier League loss away to Manchester United here at Old Trafford.

Wolves supporters vented their fury at their manager who changed every player, with the exception of American goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann, from the side that won impressively at Tottenham at the weekend.

They chanted: “What a waste of money, Where is our first team” and “Forty quid to watch the reserves” as Wolves were easily beaten on Tuesday.

But McCarthy, whose relegation-threatened team have a far more ‘winnable’ game against Burnley on Sunday, insisted he was obliged to make changes.

“I played the best team available to me tonight; the fittest, best and strongest team I could pick, that hadn’t played on Saturday,” he said. “That was my best team available because they were all fresh legs.

“I can understand the fans but that is my first team. I’ve got 21 players to pick from and they are all first team players, they are my first team squad.

“I would hope they understand that because my decisions will be judged on whether we stay in the Premier League.

He added: “I probably made some bad decisions last year and we had some bad performances but nobody remembers those because we won the Championship. If we stay up, everything is suddenly okay.”

Technically, Wolves could be punished by the Premier League whose regulations insist clubs field their strongest team in every league contest.

However, even though such action is unlikely, Chelsea will doubtless feel aggrieved as the team selection made by McCarthy helped champions United pull level with the Blues, on points, at the top of the table.

“I’m not bothered about the reaction from anybody else,” McCarthy insisted.

“When I go into their office at Chelsea, or (Arsenal manager) Arsene Wenger comes into my office at home, there was no sympathy for me, they had just turned round and slapped me.

“I make decisions for what I think is the good of my players and the good of the club. I knew those questions would be asked of my decisions but what I haven’t got tonight is any more injuries.”

Not surprisingly, Sir Alex Ferguson had few complaints about McCarthy’s team selection although his own celebrations, on the occasion of his 900th league game in charge of the club, may have been dampened by fresh injury concerns.

England defender Wes Brown was unable to start this match because of a hamstring problem and goalscorer Nemanja Vidic suffered a calf injury which could rule him out of Saturday’s visit to Fulham, bringing to eight the total of injured defenders at the club.

“Wes Brown has a hamstring and Vidic has a calf strain so he’s a worry for Saturday,” Ferguson, whose side went ahead through a Wayne Rooney penalty before Vidic and Antonio Valencia, played in by Dimitar Berbatov’s sublime skill, added further goals, said.

“But we just have to get on with it.

“Wolves put up a good show considering it was mostly their second string out. It wasn’t surprising, given that they have Burnley on Sunday and they made it very difficult for us, pressing every ball.

“We took a long time to get our game going. The changes we have been making haven’t given us the continuity in performance and that was reflected in the way we started.

“Once we got the (first) goal we were comfortable enough, we could have got more. I was happy enough.”