The bottom line in the bottom five

By now everyone knows that Wolves manager Mick McCarthy made huge changes to the team that beat Bolton at home then Spurs away for the visit to Old Trafford. He has been dragged over hot coals and asked to explain himself by the Premier League board as well as criticised by anyone and everyone for apparently bringing the game (!) and the Premier League (!!) into disrepute. It is telling that the exception in all the criticism is the people in the hot seat – managers and former managers such as Alex Ferguson, Tony Pulis, Phil Brown and Alan Shearer.

The only apparent basis for the complaints is that the Wolves fans travelled to Manchester and paid £42 to see the reserves (which seems to overlook that fans at clubs like Liverpool pay more than that to see second-team action week after week) although a few people grumbled about the ethics of changing an apparent first eleven in order to gain some mid- or long-term advantage over the club’s rivals.

First of all a reply to a manager who is increasingly delusional and lacking in credibility, Arsenal’s Arsène Wenger: McCarthy was continuing the long-existing trend of utilising the whole squad in order to obtain the maximum number of points – there is no such thing as a first eleven any more, thanks in no small part to the (beneficial) influence of continental managers such as Wenger and their system of relying on the whole squad. The Wolves boss was by no means the first manager even this season to make wholesale changes to his team (Wenger whenever he feels like it) and he wasn’t the last (David Moyes against Borisov). Of course when you’re playing in European competitions too the decision is considered to be intelligent and competitive; when you’re a multi-million-pound manager it’s simply called “rotation”. When you’ve got a bench to die for anything goes.

Now to the fans: fans have dreams, but pragmatism is the only road for a club like Wolves at the moment. Sometimes in life you stay and fight and sometimes you have to walk away and fight another day. McCarthy's priority this season should be to keep Wolves in the top flight, and in order to do that he recognises that there isn't only one league, there's two or even three or four. He is in the bottom one at the moment and needs to guarantee success against his direct rivals, the likes of Burnley. That way preserves the long-term dream of being able to stand and fight against the likes of Man United, because the dream of just rolling up at Old Trafford belongs to the teams fighting to get out of the Championship – for Wolves it is last year’s dream. This year is different and although the fans can dream it’s time for the manager to be pragmatic. True, £42 is a lot of money, but the fans spent more on their Premier League shirt and they will want it to bear the same symbols next season.

Mark Hughes’ sacking yesterday really was something that brings the game into disrepute and it is also a warning to McCarthy – look after your own club and let the other managers look after theirs, because no-one will help you if you try and follow a blameless route and end up relegated. On the contrary, one slip will see you in the street.

As a footnote to this article, Wolves have just beaten Burnley 2-0 – they have left the relegation zone, leapfrogged Burnley and other direct rivals and are now twelfth. Some people have asked what would happen if Manchester United won the league by two points (I suppose they are assuming Wolves could have managed a draw) but I think a more relevant question is to ask the Wolves fans how they will feel if they survive by the points they have gained against Burnley. It’s all very well for snobbish, elitist and hypocritical managers to moralise from the rich end of the league, but Mick McCarthy has only one priority – keep his team in the Premier League. The fans know that, it’s just a shame certain journalists – and certain managers – are too inexperienced and too protected respectively to have any idea of the bottom line.