Nottingham Forest Preview – McCarthy’s Secret Weapon

By: Matt | August 30th, 2008

Yesterday was just another ordinary day, my next door neighbour had forgotten to put his bin out on time, my 6 year old son beat me on Pro Evo Soccer (even though I was Barcelona and he was Newcastle), and my train was late for work.

Then at 1.27pm the Newsnow Wolves feed flashed up the following headline “Mick’s Secret Weapon”, it linked to a story on the official Wolves website, in which Mick, when asked about who is going to replace Elokobi at left back, is quoted as saying “I’ve got a secret weapon up my sleeve but obviously I’m not going to tell everyone what it is. There’ll be someone playing at left back, I’ll tell you that much.” He also added (although the quote strangely has since been removed from the official site, as has the original headline, but still available on the Express and Star coverage) “it won’t be what I did on Tuesday” – when both Neill Collins and Richard Stearman were used against Rotherham.

This simple story started an excitement-fest amongst Wolves fans and particularly online message boards. Why was McCarthy being so allusive and what, or rather who, was his secret weapon? So, who indeed could it be? Let’s trawl through the possibilities and various speculation that I’ve read and rate them out of 10 for plausibility.

- Stephen Ward (8)
- Stearman (7)
- Foley to switch to left-back, Stearman to right back (7)
- McCarthy’s on a wind up, it’ll be Neil Collins (5)
- Wolves youngster and left back Scott Malone will make his debut (6)
- Lee Naylor, on loan from Celtic (4)
- Danny Higginbotham (spotted at training ground yesterday hmmm) (4)
- Matt Hill, signed from Preston yesterday and hushed up (3)
- Karl Henry, with Jones and Edwards in the centre of midfield (7)
- Micky Gray (6)
- Denes Rosa (1)
- Ian Harte, offered a longer contract decided to sign (7)
- Mark Davies (3)
- 3-5-2 formation with Collins, Stearman and Ward (D) at the back (6)

Most of these, of course, are non-starters. However, if I was to take a guess, I think it’ll probably be one of Stephen Ward, Richard Stearman, or Kevin Foley.

Forest have had a decent start to the season, and after a good result and performance against Watford last week, followed by a battling (if unsuccessful) display against a strong Sunderland side in the Carling Cup on Wednesday, they will be reasonably confident of getting a point. Robert Earnshaw and Lee Martin (on loan from Manchester United) may present the newly formed Wolves defence with a few problems.

I expect Wolves to line up:

——————-Hennessey———————
Foley——–Stearman—-Collins———-Ward (S)
Kightly——Henry—————-Jones——-Jarvis
———–Ebanks-Blake——Iwelumo————-

The Carling Cup defeat to Rotherham on Tuesday has brought the Wolves doom mongerers back out in force, but expect SEB and Jarvis to be fit and Iwelumo to start. As long as our defence doesn’t capitulate I’m expected a Wolves win by two clear goals. Wolves 3 Forest 1 with SEB (2) and Kightly for Wolves.

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Other Championship Predictions:

Barnsley 1 Derby 1
Bristol City 2 QPR 1
Burnley 2 Plymouth 0
Doncaster 1 Coventry 1
Norwich 2 Birmingham 2
Preston 2 Charlton 1
Reading 2 Crystal Palace 0
Sheff Utd 2 Cardiff 1
Southampton 2 Blackpool 1
Swansea 1 Sheff Wed 1
Watford 0 Ipswich 1