MICK McCarthy will consider playing Stephen Ward alongside Kevin Doyle against QPR with his striking options stretched.

The Wolves boss was linked with a pre-deadline loan move for Manchester United’s Federico Macheda and without naming names McCarthy confirmed: “We tried do something about it, yes.

“I’ve been asked about my contingency plan and you can go through them all.

"You can go through all the options and look at all of my players and see how I might do it, or change the shape or the system. That’s for me to ponder on, isn’t it?” he said.

McCarthy says his squad is versatile enough to adapt.

“I think we’ve got players who can play up there, or off a striker,” he said.

“We don’t set it up as 11 v 11 in training because that gets tedious and they don’t want to do that.

"And it’s never done at full tilt like it is in a game.

"But we set up where there might be three in midfield and one dropping off, or one playing on the inside slightly narrower.