McCarthy backs Mancienne

Mancienne: Has backing

Wolves boss Mick McCarthy has thrown his support behind on loan star Michael Mancienne.

The Chelsea youngster, who is on a season-long loan at Molineux, has come under fire for his recent performances - particularly for his showing at Blackburn last week.

But McCarthy has leapt to Mancienne's defence, insisting he was fully confident in his ability.

"Michael has been terrific for us," he said. "I get a bit annoyed by questions about the confidence of players and whether it fluctuates.

"Let me tell you, if confidence fluctuates up and down that badly when you have a poor game by Michael's standards I would be worried about all the players.

"I judge that by the way I judge myself. Have a poor game, what do you do? Go and play better and Michael has been fantastic.

"Michael has no fault at all over that first goal we conceded at Blackburn. Karl Henry rolled him a bad pass, that was the problem.

"El-Hadji Diouf then rolled the tackle and the ball bounced well for him. It could have bounced the other way but it didn't.

"There were a lot of people condemning Michel for that goal and I thought what nonsense.

"It just highlights to me that they know nothing about it the people that condemned him.

"The second one was down to him because he was marking the guy who headed it so that was down to him. But he is a consistent player.

"You can imagine him putting together 20 good performances on the spin now."