Steven Fletcher urges Wolves to win this battle for Mick

Wolves' top scorer Steven Fletcher today urged his team-mates to win their survival fight for departed boss Mick McCarthy.

The £7m club record goal-ace's 10th goal of the season was the only highlight of the catastrophic 5-1 defeat to Albion that proved the trigger which ended McCarthy's five-and-a-half-year reign.

Fletcher spoke out in a rare interview to urge the players to pull together to prove they are good enough.

"It (McCarthy's sacking) was a bit of a surprise to be honest," said the former Burnley striker.

"We all came in on Monday morning thinking we were going to pick ourselves up after the Albion defeat and then heard the news.

"The gaffer brought me to the club and I've managed to score some goals since I've been here, so it was disappointing to see him gone.

"It's football and the gaffer has been in it a long time. Now for him, and for us and all the fans we have to make sure we stay in the league and prove we're a good enough side.

"We know what our capabilities are and what we can do on the pitch and if we produce that we can stay up.

"That last spell against Albion just wasn't us at all and the fans know that.

"Hopefully we can pick it up again at Newcastle."

Fletcher has taken just 20 games to equal his tally of 10 league goals of last season and is looking to eclipse it to become Wolves' highest scorer since John Richards hit 13 in 1980-81.

"It's the only part of the match I've watched again," he said. "I remember saying at the start of the season when talking about targets that I wanted to get the same as last season or beat it. I've now got the same with 10 in the league and hopefully there's 13 games left now to try to beat it."

Fletcher believes fellow strike partners Kevin Doyle and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake can follow him on the goal trail after all three combined for his equaliser against their arch-rivals.

"We're all good players who can score goals and link up as we did for mine against Albion," he said. "If we can get good balls into the box we can score goals."

See also:

• Steve Bruce remains in running for Wolves job

• Neil Warnock lands Leeds job

• Wolves defender Jody Craddock canvassed on management