Mick McCarthy hands Rob Edwards key advice at Wolves after ‘awful’ experience

Rob Edwards is coming into a tough role, but his former manager at Wolves, Mick McCarthy, has been in those shoes before.

We’re still in the infancy of the Edwards era at Molineux, but already, concerns are flying about Wolves’ ability to stay up this season.

Richard Keys reckons Edwards needed to win against Crystal Palace to capitalise on the feel-good factor that has been building since he took over.

But someone has a bit more experience in the realm of relegation scraps is Edwards’ old manager at Wolves, Mick McCarthy. He has some advice for the new head coach, but it might not be what fans want to hear.

Mick McCarthy has advice for Rob Edwards based on his time at Sunderland

McCarthy was thrust into a similar environment over two decades ago, brought into relegation-bound Sunderland with just nine games to go in the season.

A bit different from Edwards, who has the better part of a season to crawl back, but the message from McCarthy remains the same.

On The Managers podcast, he says: “If you go there and if you go down, you’ve got to go down fighting, looking like you’re going to stay up. Everybody’s behind you. They’re going, ‘I tell you, he’s having a right go!'”

McCarthy wasn’t able to save Sunderland from relegation, actually losing all nine of his remaining games. But he was trying to win them, and he reckons Edwards must do the same. Give the survival effort everything.

He continues: “So, it is a risk for Rob and I sincerely hope he does it because he’s a great lad. I had him as a player when I was there. Lovely fella. He’s had a good record. I sincerely hope he does well and because he’s at Wolves as well, but two points. Yeah. At the minute, he’s got a tough old gig.”

McCarthy needed two tries to return Sunderland to the top-flight, missing out by the smallest of margins on his first go. You’d imagine Edwards won’t get that kind of leeway.

• READ MORE: Mick McCarthy’s parting plea to Wolves after sacking fell on deaf ears

Relegation watch

At the beginning of the season, most were expecting the promoted teams to struggle.

In the opening weeks, that was far from the case. Sunderland tore off up the table, and Burnley and Leeds edged ahead of the likes of West Ham, Brentford, Nottingham Forest, and of course, Wolves.

Now almost a third of the way through the season, we are seeing those Premier League regulars — Wolves excluded — reverting to form. Both Forest and the Hammers have seven points from their last three.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
14	NewcastleNewcastle	12	4	3	5	13	15	-2	15
15	FulhamFulham	12	4	2	6	13	16	-3	14
16	Nottingham ForestNottingham Forest	12	3	3	6	13	20	-7	12
17	West HamWest Ham	12	3	2	7	15	25	-10	11
18	LeedsLeeds	12	3	2	7	11	22	-11	11
19	BurnleyBurnley	12	3	1	8	14	24	-10	10
20	WolvesWolves	12	0	2	10	7	27	-20	2

Leeds and Burnley are on a three-game losing streak, and look the most catchable.

But Wolves have to leap one more side to stay in the league, and there are no longer obvious contenders outside the drop zone.

Wolves are on track for a historically bad campaign, and relegation looks like the most likely outcome, but Edwards needs to ensure he doesn’t let the season slip away without a fight.