With the Championship’s top 6 order of merit changing with every remaining game, nerves of steel will be required to secure one of three promotion places to the Premiership. Whilst the players may control the club’s destiny once they take to the field, it could be the manager who best convinces his players they belong amongst footballs elite, that provides the vital ingredient. Sue McCann caught up with one of footballs proven motivators, Mick McCarthy.

“I think it probably has a bearing on it, well you like to think the managers have a bearing on it but mostly it’s down to the players. It doesn’t just come down to these remaining 8 games does it? It’s like; I guess being on a selection process throughout the season, from the start of the season to the transfer window, you keep doing your work all of the time not just now. All the seeds have been sown but I guess there is a big part for the manager to play now, how he reacts and how he deals with it because everyone starts to feel the pressure. Managers all over the world can be prone to mistakes, doing things they wouldn’t do or behaving differently when the pressure comes on.”

You had a big re-building job to do at Wolves when you arrived very shortly before the season kicked off and you’ve had to blood a lot of youngsters. They’ve performed very well, what approach do you take with young players as a manager Mick; do you nurture them and put your arm around them or do you say ‘you know what, here’s your chance, prove me right…’?

“First of all you give them the opportunity and tell them that it is an opportunity and encourage them to take it. But then even having taken it they’ll have days when they don’t play as well because they are young players and physically they find it tough as well coming in playing Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday or whatever it may be in our league. So that does become difficult and then they need an arm around them but that’s my approach to all of my players to be honest. But they can find it physically demanding having come out of the youth team last year and then stepping up to the Championship.”

You did it with the Republic of Ireland, you did it at Sunderland and you are doing it again this season with Wolves…you have an incredible knack of getting players to bond and gel together into an incredibly tight unit. Do you realise that you are doing this yourself; it can’t be a coincidence because it happens everywhere you go, what’s the secret?

“I don’t know…I’m fortunate, myself and my Assistant Ian Evans have always been together, it’s always me and him. I guess it’s just what we do I don’t know what I do but I do put a big emphasis on it though (a tight unit) as has been proved in my past. You know, ‘you’re either inside the tent peeing out or outside the tent peeing in!’ and as far as I’m concerned that goes for everybody, the team comes before everything else. The players respond to it, they know that’s how I feel; I’m not just saying it, that’s what I believe. I am loyal to people and I look for it in return; I give it to them and I expect it I guess. But I give myself to people and the club, I put my shift in, I’m doing my job and I’m not asking anything that I wouldn’t do and I think it’s reciprocated because the players see that.”

It’s visible in your body language, you can certainly read in your press interviews that you really are loving being at Wolves and thriving on it…

“I’m glad that is coming over, I’d hate it not to come over… but you know what I’m like, I’m not putting that on for anybody, I just am enjoying the job. I knew when I came to speak to them what a great club it is but I didn’t know whether I was going to have a good team but that was the challenge. Everything else was here, the challenge was to create a team that could win games and my brief was really to make sure that we were stable and settled and being in the top half of the table would have been an achievement and I guess that would have been thought. We haven’t done anything else yet, we’re in the Top 6 but we’ve not achieved anything, not won anything.”