McCarthy says Wolves will not be in relegation fight

Boss Mick McCarthy today insisted Wolves will not get dragged into a relegation dogfight.

Wolves currently sit second from bottom in the Premier League after Saturday's 2-0 defeat at Chelsea made it eight games without a win.

Liverpool's 2-1 win over Blackburn yesterday left them three points from safety with almost a quarter of the season gone.

McCarthy's men don't look like finding it any easier with three of the current top four to come in the next four games.

Eleven months ago, McCarthy declared Wolves were in a fight for survival after a 4-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge. But the Molineux chief has no such fears this time around.

"We went to Chelsea last year and I said afterwards that we were in a relegation dogfight," said the boss.

"We really got our bellies tickled last year. We were poor, we didn't make a tackle for 73 minutes.

"That wasn't the case on Saturday. And I don't think we'll be in the bottom three come the end of the season.

"We've got to stay with it. We will weather any storm that comes, like we did last year, and pick up points where we can."

McCarthy has seen Albion pick up 15 points from the same number of games - nine more than Wolves.

But he insisted:"It doesn't really matter. You hear everybody crowing at the minute, and we had it last year.

"We stayed up and some other teams who had good starts didn't. So we've got to maintain belief and pick the points up where we can."

By Tim Nash