McCarthy's Wolves at the Turf

Just a day short of three weeks later, former Millwall, Republic of Ireland and Sunderland boss Mick McCarthy was handed the job, this after either Stuart Gray (Hoddle's assistant) or Paul Ince had looked set to take over.

Nobody had expected them to look outside the club although one or two wayward reporters were linking other managers to the job, including our own Steve Cotterill who was supposedly at Molineux for talks at the same time as he was out of the country on a family holiday.

McCarthy took over a squad that was much changed from the one that Hoddle had up to the end of last season with a number of players leaving the club. Defender Joleon Lescott had gone to Everton for £5 million and Seol Ki-Hyeon to Reading for £1.5 million whilst Kenny Miller and Colin Cameron opted to move on Bosman deals to Celtic and Coventry respectively.

As Wolves cut their cloth with the end of the parachute payments they also said goodbye to such as Darren Anderton, George Ndah, goalkeeper Stefan Postma, Mark Kennedy and Vio Ganea, and following the appointment of the new manager Paul Ince decided to leave the club.

That left the new boss with little time to strengthen but he has added five new players, one of them on loan, although three of them arrived during the last week before the season got underway.

His first signing, announced the day before McCarthy's appointment was confirmed, was defender Gary Breen from Sunderland, the second time in two years he had signed him, and that was followed up with the capture of striker Jay Bothroyd from Charlton, now with his fifth club in three years.

That was it until four days before the start of the new season when McCarthy made a move for a player who was involved in one of the most unlikely transfers of the year during the January window.

Craig Davies is a Welsh Under-21 international but he was struggling to win a place in the Oxford United team that was struggling in League Two when he got the chance to move to Italy and Serie B club Hellas Verona in an £85,000. Having initially turned it down he moved on the last day of the window but has struggled to make an impact at his new club.

On moving to Northern Italy he became the only British player in Italian football but now he's at Wolves on a season long loan and is hoping to re-establish himself in England with the hope of winning himself a permanent deal back to the Football League.

A day later and the Wolves squad was ready for the start of the season when they added two more players. The first was defender Jamie Clapham who arrived on a free transfer from Birmingham and he was followed by Stoke's Karl Henry who cost £100,000.

This week there have been two more additions to the squad, that of Liverpool's Darren Potter and Jemal Johnson from Blackburn.

Potter has joined on loan for the season and has twice previously appeared at Burnley. He was in the Liverpool side we beat in the FA Cup in 2005 and then appeared for Southampton last season during a loan spell at St Mary's.

Striker Johnson has made the move to Molineux on a permanent basis after spending a few days training with the club. The 22 year old American didn't start a game for the Ewood Park club but made two Championship starts for Preston last season whilst on loan before replacing Kyle Lafferty at Darlington for whom he played nine times.

One further signing won't be happening, they had hoped to bring in Lee Carsley from Everton but the player has opted to remain with the Premiership club.

The additions to the squad come after what can be described as an average start of one win, one draw and one defeat. The one victory was against Ipswich at home in a game that saw the visitors miss a penalty.

Click HERE to see all Wolves' results this season.

Mick McCarthy has those two new players to add to his squad but his biggest concern is striker Jay Bothroyd who is struggling with a calf injury. He's rated as doubtful, and if he misses out that should give Johnson his opportunity in the starting line up with Carl Cort serving the third and last game of a ban following his red card on the opening day of the season.

There could be a clash of the O'Connor brothers although the game could start without either of them. James has been on the bench in our last two games whilst his younger brother Kevin is facing a late test on a groin strain although he is back in training.

The big news for Wolves is that Sefi Olofinjana came through a behind closed doors game against Northampton, having been used as a substitute last week, and is back in contention whilst there could also be returns for Denes Rosa and Lewis Gobern.

McCarthy said of Gobern: “I would love to get him fit, he's done really well and a bit of pace in wide areas would be nice.”

Wolves are expected to line up: Matt Murray, Rob Edwards, Gary Breen, Jody Craddock, Lee Naylor, Sefi Olofinjana, Karl Henry, Kevin O'Connor, Jamie Clapham, Craig Davies, Jemal Johnson. Subs from: Michael Oakes, Mark Clyde, Daniel Jones, Rohan Ricketts, Leon Clarke, Darren Potter, Denes Rosa.

Click HERE to see the full Wolves squad.

Burnley will make at least one change to the side that drew at Sheffield Wednesday with Andy Gray ruled out with a one match suspension. The most likely replacement is Kyle Lafferty but he's nursing a slight strain from the Northern Ireland game in midweek.

He's expected to be fit and I would think will start but the absence of Gray could lead to a place on the bench for Gifton Noel-Williams who scored the only goal in a 1-0 win against Blackburn this week in a behind closed doors game.

Steve Cotterill said Gifton had done well and held the ball up well, that is something that will be missing with Gray on the sidelines, but if he is on the bench it does give us that option to change things if necessary.

Will James O'Connor come back into the starting line up? He's done well as a late sub in the two away games, scoring the equaliser at Hillsborough, but I suspect Steve will stick with the same midfield although the player most at risk of losing his place is probably Wade Elliott who at least whilst in the side is offering us some width.

I think it will be Kyle for Gray and that would leave the side: Brian Jensen, Frank Sinclair, Wayne Thomas, Michael Duff, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott, Micah Hyde, Chris McCann, Alan Mahon, Steve Jones, Kyle Lafferty. Subs from: Stephen Foster, John McGreal, James O'Connor, Garreth O'Connor, Gifton Noel-Williams, John Spicer, Graham Branch.

The home game against Wolves last season came during that disastrous run in the early part of 2006 when we suffered six successive league defeats. The 1-0 defeat against tomorrow's opponents was the second of those defeats and the first of a run of five games without even a goal.

Burnley had most of the play but having gone behind to a Paul Ince goal early in the game we didn't really look as though we'd get back into it and so it proved. We resorted to hitting too many long balls at the front two, Gifton Noel-Williams and Michael Ricketts, and that made things too easy for their central defenders Jody Craddock and Joleon Lescott.

The teams were;

Burnley: Brian Jensen, Wade Elliott, Michael Duff, John McGreal, Jon Harley, John Spicer, Micah Hyde, James O'Connor, Chris McCann (Graham Branch 63), Gifton Noel-Williams, Michael Ricketts. Subs not used: Duane Courtney, Danny Karbassiyoon, Garreth O'Connor, Marc Pugh.

Wolves: Stefan Postma, Maurice Ross, Joleon Lescott, Jody Craddock, Lee Naylor, Mark Davies, Paul Ince, Denes Rosa (Darren Anderton 75), Carl Cort, Tomasz Frankowski (Jeremie Aliadiere 80), Kenny Miller. Subs not used: Michael Oakes, Mark Kennedy, Vio Ganea.

Previous 20 Seasons
Season	Div	Ven	Result	Att	Scorers
1986/87	4	a	1-0	5,786	Grewcock
.	.	h	2-5	2,947	Grewcock James
1987/88	4	a	0-3	10,002	.
.	.	h	0-3	10,386	.
.	SV	W	0-2	80,841	.
1994/95	1	h	0-1	17,766	.
.	.	a	0-2	25,703	.
2000/01	1	a	0-1	20,156	.
.	.	h	1-2	15,483	Branch
2001/02	1	a	0-3	24,893	.
.	.	h	2-3	21,823	I Moore Johnson
2002/03	1	a	0-3	25,031	.
.	.	h	2-1	18,641	Taylor West
2003/04	LC	a	0-2	18,548	.
2004/05	C	h	1-1	13,869	Blake
.	LC	h	1-1	5,013	Blake - won 4-2 on penalties
.	C	a	0-2	24,336	.
2005/06	C	a	1-0	21,747	G O'Connor
.	.	h	1-0	11,056	.

Click HERE to see more results against Wolves since our first meeting in the inaugral league season of 1888/89.