McCarthy sick of near misses

Manager Mick McCarthy is fed up being associated with "heroic failure" and admits Wolves need to quickly acquire the winning habit after dropping into the Barclays Premier League bottom three.

McCarthy has been happy with the general performance of his players in recent games, which have included creditable away draws with Arsenal and Tottenham.

But the 3-2 home setback against Aston Villa last weekend extended Wolves' run without a win to eight games, from which they have collected only four points.

McCarthy, whose side entertain Liverpool next Tuesday, said: "I don't want people talking to me about how we've played good, bad or indifferent. We need to win games and we need points. I don't want to be in the bottom three at any stage. We are playing well but we are finding every way possible to lose a game and it's costing us.

"Look at the Villa game. There wasn't a lot more that could have gone wrong in the game - a penalty, a sending-off (Karl Henry), someone carried off (Emmanuel Frimpong).

"It was another game we should have won on the back of our terrific first-half performance. But it goes down as another heroic failure, which I don't want. It's been the story of our season."