Mick McCarthy was wrong to weaken Wolves

Everybody's talking about Mick McCarthy. On Tuesday night, he made ten changes to the Wolverhampton Wanderers side that beat Tottenham Hotspur and sent out a weakened team to be beaten 3-0 by Manchester United at Old Trafford. Only goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann survived, and the inevitable controversy has boiled over in the hours and days since.

McCarthy has been asked to explain his team selection by the Premier League. Premier League sides are obliged to field their strongest possible line-up for every game, but the Wolves boss has boxed clever from the start. By defending his right to treat his squad as a collective of equals and pointing out the holes in the idea of a "strongest eleven" in modern football, McCarthy has most likely dodged any threat of official censure. The message from the boardroom at Molineux has been the same, suggesting that the decision to make so many changes had backing from above and was taken well in advance and in full knowledge of possible repercussions.

But, as Mick and the club will now be well aware, cleverly playing the rules doesn't necessarily get you off the hook. There are several arguments out there in the world of football which suggest that McCarthy was in the wrong when he decided to weaken his Wolves side for the trip to Old Trafford. I tend to agree with many of them, but it's important to note that McCarthy's job is to keep Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League. I have a lot of sympathy for that side of the argument - I just think significantly and openly weakening a team for a Premier League game is hugely problematic.

"42 quid to watch reserves"

Football used to be about football, but now it's about business - like it or not. Marketing matters, value for money matters, customer service matters. And while McCarthy's approach may have been the best thing for Wolves on the field (in his mind at least, and he's the man paid to make that decision), it's a worrying move in customer relations terms. Ticket prices in the Premier League are a complete disgrace, and Wolves supporters paid on average £42 to go to Old Trafford on Tuesday - and that's just for the ticket.

Add in the cost of travel, itself ludicrous in the UK, and United away amounts to an expensive away day. Loathe as I am to compare football to "entertainment", there must be some element of trust between the paying public and those that run the product they're purchasing. A section of supporters apparently chanted "42 quid to watch reserves" on Tuesday night and I don't blame them. Rest Kevin Doyle, my all means. Or Sylvain Ebanks-Blake, or any key player. But to make ten changes (albeit I believe one or two knocks were picked up between the Spurs and United fixtures) is an explicit two-fingers to the fans.

You've paid over forty pounds to support us, but we're not interested. Were I a Wolves supporter, I wouldn't be happy with that sort of message.

Losing mentality

Thankfully, I'm not a Wolves supporter. But Aston Villa made a similar-but-different decision last year in the UEFA Cup. Level with CSKA Moscow after the first leg, and in fine league form, Martin O'Neill sent a severely weakened squad to Moscow in order to focus squarely on Champions League qualification. The error he made - and McCarthy has now made too - is that one game affects the next.

It has been argued that O'Neill, by sending Villa into a game with an increased likelihood of defeat, triggered a very poor run of form. It's not about one game in isolation, basically. Villa almost avoided the repercussions by beating Stoke City, but threw away a 2-0 lead at home. Paired up, those two matches destroyed the season. Momentum and a winning mentality are important in football. Ordinarily, losing at Old Trafford wouldn't create a losing mentality. But heading into the game with such a defeatist approach probably does begin to have that effect.

Pick your battles, sure. But the message was so clear in this case that I think it could start to make Wolves look (and feel?) as if they don't belong. That's bad news.

Integrity of the league

Arsene Wenger is a right moany old git, that much we know. Tony Pulis agrees, and Phil Brown agrees. I have no sympathy for his complaint that Arsenal have a little bit of fixture congestion (well, two games in a week) - Villa have to play Arsenal and Liverpool in the space of three days over Christmas. He omitted that little nugget in his whining diatribe, of course.

But he has room for complaint when it comes to McCarthy's controversial team selection at Old Trafford. McCarthy's primary concern is his own team's fortunes, of course, but his actions could have a significant effect on matters elsewhere in the table. The very cornerstone of league football is the idea of a level playing field. If Wolves roll over for United and not for Arsenal, or Chelsea, McCarthy is fundamentally undermining the integrity of the Premier League. And it's so lacking in integrity off the pitch, it needs all it can get on it.

Phil Brown moment?

Could Tuesday have been the night McCarthy lost the confidence and goodwill of some of his players? I know that had I been promoted to the Premier League and just beaten Spurs, I wouldn't be pleased with being robbed of the chance to play at Old Trafford. As Brown discovered, it's all too easy to forget that footballers are human beings and will react as such when they feel mistreated. Brown's on-pitch half time bollocking at Eastlands last season was an exercise in attention-seeking, but it's possible footballing virtue - that the players were playing poorly and needed to be brought down a peg - was negated by the fact that people don't like to be humiliated.

Similarly, McCarthy's seemingly sound managerial move in gutting his starting eleven might just have unforeseen results, i.e. a shitload of defeats. I'm sure it won't be as dramatic as Hull's 2009 form but it could undo McCarthy's good work nonetheless.

(Pic via Paddy The Flea)