Mick McCarthy has told his players he will not be introducing Micky Adams-style breath tests or weigh-ins as his Wolverhampton Wanderers squad prepares for a challenging run of four matches in nine days.
Instead, the manager has chosen to trust his men and appeal to their professionalism for tomorrow’s match with Norwich City and the Boxing Day vist to Pride Park, home of high-flying Derby County.
McCarthy's stance is diametrically opposed to that of his Coventry City counterpart, who last week imposed an alcohol ban and warned the Sky Blues players he would be staging random breathalyser tests and asking his players to step on the scales every morning.
But the former Sunderland and Republic of Ireland manager prefers a more laissez-faire approach to controlling festive excesses and says he backs his team to be responsible.
"When I was a player, if someone had suggested to me they were going to breath-test me, I would have thought 'they don't trust me'," McCarthy said.
"I trust them to look after themselves and be professional. I don't think there's any other way you can do it.
"What happens if I breath-test them all on Christmas Day morning and they've all got bad breath and stinking? What am I going to do then? Say none of them are playing?
"I fully understand it and I know where Micky is coming from. I'm making light of it but he doesn't want anybody to be doing something they wouldn't do normally. We ask people to be professional and you trust them to be that way — I can't see any other way round it."
Wolves’ players will be training every day, while McCarthy expects two difficult matches against the East Anglians and a Rams side that is second in the Championship and has not lost at home since mid-October.
The first of those encounters, is perhaps, the more intriguing. Norwich's arrival in the Black Country throws McCarthy into direct opposition with his long-term friend Peter Grant, who was appointed manager at Carrow Road two months ago.
But during their playing days, the two men were not only Celtic team-mates, they shared a room on away trips and were involved in a training ground bust-up that has gone down in club folklore. The incident in 1988 was recently described by eye-witness Charlie Christie, now the Inverness Thistle manager, as one of the best fights he has seen.
'Me and Granty are the best of pals — we were that day," McCarthy recalled. "We used to argue like cat and dog in training, whether we were on the same side or opposite side. It was just the same that day.
"It never amounted to a bust-up, I went back from training in a car with him — I had my hand round his throat all the way, though. That was normal procedure for me and Granty on a daily basis, the pair of us are just very competitive."
* Lewis Gobern has returned to training while Mark Davies' withdrawal from a reserve-team match was merely precautionary.
