Mick McCarthy today hit out at a ‘poor’ performance by Wolves after they scraped through to the last 16 of the Carling Cup against 10-man Notts County.

Wolves needed extra-time for the second successive tie to see off lower league opposition as goals from substitutes Kevin Doyle (two) and Steven Fletcher belatedly clinched a 4-2 win and a place in the last 16.

“It was poor by us,” said the boss.

“I wasn’t happy with the performance and I feel quite fortunate. I picked a Premier League team and it was disappointing we didn’t play better.”

McCarthy admitted his starting XI shouldn’t have needed Doyle and Fletcher to get the right result.

“That team should have been good enough to win without putting the subs on,” he said. “But we needed Fletcher and Doyle they changed the game.

“Anybody looking at my team would think I was very lucky to have those two on the bench, and that’s how I felt.

“I didn’t bring them on earlier because I thought we could win it with the players on the pitch and there were players who needed to play.

“We’ve played well every game in the Premier League but in the two Carling Cup ones we haven’t.”

Steven Mouyokolo made his debut and Marcus Bent his first start and McCarthy admitted the disjointed nature of where different players are with their fitness didn’t help.

“Maybe it’s because we brought players in who aren’t ‘battle-hardened’,” he said.

“Whoever we get next we’ll have to play better than that.”

By Tim Nash