McCarthy angered by FA Cup exit

Wolves boss Mick McCarthy could not hide his disappointment after their FA Cup replay defeat to local rivals Birmingham City on Wednesday.

Wade Elliott grabbed the only goal of the game with 15 minutes remaining, after a scurry at the front post saw the midfielder scrape the Blues through to the fourth round of the tournament at the second time of asking.

Following the game, McCarthy revealed his fury at the derby loss, with his side set to face another local rival in Aston Villa in the Premier League on Saturday.

“I am (angry with the result), very disappointed, more so that the game hinged on us not marking from a corner kick. I’ve got plenty of complaints at us, for not being good enough on the night,” he said.

Asked if he had the Villa game in mind: “That’s not the point, I know winning games creates that winning mentality and we’ve been good apart from Chelsea when we lost in last minutes. I’m bitterly disappointed, we’ve not played particularly well, it was fairly even.”

The midlands outfit put in a performance of stark contrast to their last fixture, in which they forced a 1-1 draw with Champions League hopefuls Tottenham at White Hart Lane.

“It’s just a huge disappointment,” he said. “We get up for a big important game like Spurs and take a point from one of the top teams.”

“There’s been a few changes, some forced on me, others were my decision, but they’re all Premier League footballers and I thought the best of them was Matt Doughty who was the one kid on the pitch and I thought he was probably the best player.”

“I know what they can do in the team and collectively we’ve not done it as well as we could have done, but they’ve all got to be in my thinking, we’ve got 17 games left and there’s no point in discounting anyone because they’ve not played as well as they can.”

Birmingham boss Chris Hughton was delighted with the victory, as well as the effort shown by his players at Molineux.

“(It was) very satisfying, of course Wolves made some changes, so did we, but come here and with the way Wolves play with the two wide players and they can capitalise with them,” he said.

“I thought it was a good performance by us, we had to defend very well at times and I thought the two centre-halves were excellent today. But I thought we showed enough on the ball to be a real threat and I thought in the end we probably deserved it.”

Goalkeeper Colin Doyle made two courageous saves at the death to deny the hosts extra time and was singled out for praise in particular by the ex-Newcastle boss.

Hughton added:”Yes he has (made a vital contribution), we’ve needed that. (Boaz) Myhill’s had a good season for us, but to have someone like Colin Doyle come in and when he’s come in he’s never let us down.”

“It was an important save, I think at that stage at the game nobody, maybe Mick (McCarthy), wanted to be going into extra-time, it was a welcome save.”