Mick McCarthy approach just right, says Kevin Foley

Sep 23 2008

KEVIN Foley today asserted that Wolves manager Mick McCarthy has instilled in his team a style of football that suits his players perfectly.

Wolves sit three points clear at the top of the Championship after a stunning start which has brought 19 points – and 21 goals – from seven games.

But while admitting that they are enjoying the “taste” of life at the top of the division, Foley flagged up the method and hard graft that has underpinned that buccaneering start.

“The lads have had a taste of it now and we just want to keep going.

“We are always talking, in the changing room after games and in training, about the kind of football we want to play,” he said.

‘‘It’s about not letting the other team have time on the ball and then, when we get it, trying to break really quickly.

“It has worked well so far. There are games when we have been all over teams from the first whistle. That’s the way the gaffer wants us to play and that’s the way it suits us to play.

“Now we have to make sure we keep to the standards we have set – every time we go out on the pitch. There are a lot of good teams in this league that can punish you.”

Wolves are top of a very competitive Championship pile with virtually every week confronting them with opposition with aspirations to the Premiership, if not recent experience of it.

Coming next, home games against last season’s play-offs finalists Bristol City on Saturday lunchtime then, next Tuesday, a Reading side just down from the top flight.

“A lot of teams in the division have Premiership experience from the last few years,” Foley said.

“There are a lot of good teams in the Championship and, while there are always the favourites to go up, somebody also invariably emerges from the pack.

“ I don’t think, at the start of the season, anyone can judge who will win the league. In years gone by it has thrown up a few surprises. Look at last year – Hull did really well and nobody expected that.”