Was Sacking Mick McCarthy Really The Right Thing For Wolves To Do?

It wasn’t really surprising when Wolves decided to sack Mick McCarthy.  The day before, Wolves had been hammered 5-1 at home to rivals West Brom, and the supporters were far from happy.  That had been a running theme for the season, as the fans reached a breaking point, loudly criticising McCarthy’s tactics and substitutions when things weren’t going well (which was frequently this season).  The defeat to West Brom drew a line under a terrible 13 match run, which saw Wolves win just once, and lose 6 games, forcing the board to sack McCarthy.

McCarthy had of course been the manager when Wolves were promoted back into the Premier League, but in truth, there had been few signs of progress in this, their third season back in the top flight.  A win at Loftus Road against QPR the week before the West Brom game was just their 5^th league win of the season, and their first since early December.  With less than 40 points to play for, the board knew that they had to replace McCarthy quickly, and they got to work, with managers like Steve Bruce and Alan Curbishley being linked.

But it seemed that the board were reluctant to hand out a long-term deal to their new manager, with reports suggesting that terms were only being offered until the end of the season.  That should not really be a surprise to anyone, as relegation from the Premier League would force a dramatic downsizing of the wage bill and playing squad, with the manager almost certainly having to take a pay-cut too.  But at the same time, by not offering a long-term contract, established managers were unlikely to accept the job, knowing that there would be no guarantee of staying at the club beyond the end of the season.

So after Bruce, Curbishley and even former Rangers manager Walter Smith apparently passed on the position, Wolves decided to hand caretaker manager Terry Connor the job.  Connor has been on the coaching staff of Wolves for more than a decade, joining in 1999, and becoming McCarthy’s assistant manager in 2008.  But this is Connor’s first managerial position, and it seems unlikely that he would have radically different methods or ideas to McCarthy.  He did appear to have an impact on his first game in charge though, as Wolves faced Newcastle at St. James Park.  Newcastle lead 2-0 at half-time, but Wolves were level after 66 minutes, and it seemed like Connor’s half-time talk had done the trick.

But a week later, Wolves were ripped apart by a rampant Fulham side at Craven Cottage, with a 2-0 half-time lead becoming a 5-0 full-time win.  Fulham are hardly one of the Premier League’s flair teams, but Wolves had no answer to their attacking players, and wave after wave of Fulham attacks lead to a hat-trick for Pavel Pogrebnyak and a brace for Clint Dempsey.   And Wolves suffered a hammer blow on Saturday, as fellow relegation strugglers Blackburn came to Molineux and won 2-0.  Wolves are still just a single point away from 17^th and just three behind Blackburn who are now 16^th, but they do not have an easy finish to the season.  Four of their five remaining home fixtures are against Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City and Everton, and they have just two games (at home to Bolton and away to Wigan on the final day of the season) against the teams around them.

So although Wolves are certainly not doomed yet, staying in the Premier League is going to be extremely difficult.  And having failed to find an experienced manager to replace Mick McCarthy, the question is, why sack him at all?  Although it may not have been fair on McCarthy, if the Wolves board had been considering his future for a while, why hadn’t they sounded out potential replacements to see if they’d take a short-term contract?  Presumably they felt that Alan Curbishley, out of the game since being sacked as West Ham manager in 2009, would have jumped at the chance to return to the Premier League regardless of the length of his contract.  That was wrong, and now they’ve placed their faith in a man who has 270 minutes of managerial experience.  Perhaps they should have given Mick McCarthy more time.

For more blogs, follow me on Twitter @DavidWDougan and @TheGlassCase.

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