Wolves boss Mick McCarthy suffered his first setback of the season as Wolves crashed out of the Carling Cup on penalties, but urged praise for Rotherham rather than criticism of his own team.The Wolves boss acknowledged a flawed performance from his much-changed line-up which went out 4-3 on penalties after the match remained deadlocked at 0-0 at full time.

McCarthy was adamant that his players’ shortfall should not detract from the merits of the performance from the League Two outfit, fighting back from a series of survival-threatening problems.

Docked 17 points to start their season after twice going into administration since the turn of the Millennium, Rotherham are fighting back with a 100 per cent start from their temporary base at the Don Valley Stadium.

The athletics venue made for a strange setting for the Carling Cup tie but the Wolves boss wanted nothing to do with using that as an excuse.

“I’m not going to level any sort of reasoning or excuse behind it,” McCarthy responded when asked about the three open-sided venue.

“We’re professional and should be able to deal with that. There’s nothing wrong with the stadium and the pitch is lovely, I’ve no complaints on that score.

“Sometimes you just have to congratulate the opposition. And Rotherham played well – they got men behind the ball and made it difficult for us.

“I don’t think our better players did particularly well on the night but I think we should give Rotherham credit rather than look for any reasons for our performance.

“They played well, stopped us playing and competed equally as well as we did.

“I don’t think either team deserved to win it over the 90 minutes or indeed the half an hour of extra time.

“You’d think the Championship team might have the edge on that but we didn’t and they have taken better penalties than us and won the game because of it.”

Despite knocking McCarthy’s side out of the competition Robins expects Wolves to be one of the front-runners for promotion this season.

“I am absolutely certain that they will be in the shake up for thew Premier League,” he said.