LISA SMITH

Mick McCarthy insists his high-flying Wolverhampton Wanderers side will not be taking this weekend’s opponents Plymouth Argyle lightly despite the fact that some 20 league places divide the sides.

The Pilgrims have only won one game in their last 14 but the Coca-Cola Championship leaders are prepared for a battle - McCarthy believes it is sides fighting for their lives which are the toughest test.

The Wolves boss said: “Don’t even suggest Plymouth is an easy game!”

And in an interesting analogy he said: “I’ll ask you a question.

“There’s a greyhound going through a field and he sees a rabbit.

“The rabbit gets up and starts running. The greyhound fancies a bit of snap but the rabbit fancies his life.

“Who runs the hardest?

“The rabbit, absolutely! That’s been my view on life.”

The Yorkshireman explained: “If you’re fighting to survive, like Plymouth are in this league, and they’re on about sacking the manager (Paul Sturrock), changing players around – it’s supposedly desperation stakes there.

“That means people fighting for survival are not easy to play against.”

He continued: “It’s not a case of people turning up on Saturday and sitting there waiting for us to beat them.

“It will be a very hard game because they’re fighting for their lives.

“We’re going to have to play equally as well as we did on Sunday and it might be a harder game than Cardiff just like Norwich was, or Doncaster.”

The Wanderers’ manager insists there is no such thing as an easy game and never has been in his career at the helm at Molineux or elsewhere in his role as manager.

“I’ve not had an easy game yet and I don’t expect any with 12 games to play,” he reflected.

“I was with Manchester City when we got promoted, stayed up one year and then got relegated.

“With six games to go we looked certain to be relegated – but then we started playing.

“We were playing great football and although we ended up going down on the last day one or two got a real shock in between.

Wolves last met Plymouth on the opening day of the season in a hard-fought game at Home Park which ended honours even, 2-2.

McCarthy said: “We gave a bad goal away at their place and got back into it before giving another bad goal away.

“We got another equaliser and battered them but Graham Stack saved everything – he was man of the match.

“It will be a tough game, as Sheffield United will know after they drew there on Saturday.”