McCarthy plays down promotion fanfare

Wolverhampton manager Mick McCarthy is refusing to get carried away by talk of promotion even though his side are just one win from reaching the Premier League.

McCarthy’s team are three points away from a place among English football’s elite after Andy Keogh’s late goal clinched a 3-2 win at Derby on Monday.

Wolves are seven points clear of third-placed Sheffield United with just three games remaining and a win against QPR on Saturday would guarantee promotion from the Championship.

But McCarthy doesn’t want his players distracted by the carnival atmosphere that is certain to surround Molineux next weekend.

“That’s dangerous. They will all be wanting the carnival stuff and the fanfare and turning up and giving it large and the big yahoo, but it’s business as usual as far as I am concerned,” said the former Republic of Ireland manager.

“We were hopeless. We were awful. We were rubbish. We couldn’t play any worse and we won the game. We were bobbins, except for Keogh and Jarvo (Matt Jarvis) and the front lads.

“But we kept going and winning games is not always about playing free-flowing football. There are lots of ways to win games and sometimes you have to do it ugly, and that’s what we have done.”

Birmingham’s hopes of going up with Wolves are in the balance after Alex McLeish’s 10 men held on for a 1-1 home draw against Plymouth.

The second-placed Blues are only one point ahead of Sheffield United, while Cardiff are only four points behind with a game in hand.

Birmingham goalkeeper Maik Taylor was sent off in the first half for a foul on Jamie Mackie, although video replays proved the incident occurred outside the area, and on-loan Blackburn striker Paul Gallagher slotted the spot-kick past substitute stopper Colin Doyle to put Plymouth ahead.

But French defender Franck Queudrue was on hand to rescue a point with a 49th-minute header.

McLeish admitted his side have to win all their remaining games to be sure of promotion. “We’ll keep going, we’ve got to go to Watford and win and try and win the rest of our games,” he said.

“But if the league finished now, with us second, then I think we’ll be quite happy.”

Sheffield United’s promotion charge was halted by Nottingham Forest, who secured a 0-0 draw at Bramall Lane despite the first-half dismissal of Kelvin Wilson.

“If you said to me back in June when we returned for pre-season training that with three games to go we’d be in with a chance of automatic promotion, I’d have broken both your legs and your arms,” Blades boss Kevin Blackwell said.

Cardiff boosted their late promotion bid with a 3-1 win over play-off rivals Burnley at Ninian Park.

At the bottom of the table, Southampton claimed a crucial 1-0 win over Crystal Palace, Norwich climbed out of the relegation zone with a 2-0 victory against Watford and Barnsley are still in danger of going down after a 3-1 home defeat to Swansea.

Elsewhere, Charlton shared a goalless draw with Coventry, Reading drew 2-2 at Blackpool, Ipswich drew 1-1 at Bristol City, Preston beat Doncaster 2-0 and QPR came from two goals down to defeat Sheffield Wednesday 3-2.