Mick McCarthy happy for Wolves to win 'the right way'

The Fulham captain, Danny Murphy, had accused Wolves of having an aggressive approach last season, fuelling bad blood between the two sides.

Mick McCarthy, the Wolverhampton Wanderers manager, felt his team proved a point about their playing style with their 2-0 victory over Fulham at Molineux.

Bobby Zamora, the Fulham striker, suffered a broken leg following a challenge by Karl Henry when the two sides met in London last September.

Fulham's captain Danny Murphy later caused a storm when he criticised the aggressive approach adopted by some top-flight clubs, with Wolves among those he made specific reference to.

McCarthy revealed earlier this week that Murphy apologised for his comments before the return fixture in April.

Nonetheless, McCarthy was left irked by the reputation his side had gained from the episode, so was delighted to see them win with a flowing performance.

"What is pleasing is that we gained this reputation last year for being a dirty team at Fulham by kicking them off the park, which is just so wrong," McCarthy said. "I really enjoyed watching my team play football against them today and beating them in the right way.

"It is nothing to do with [the Fulham manager] Martin Jol or the players - it was just that incident last year really did us a disservice, so it is pleasing to put that to bed."

Kevin Doyle opened the scoring in the 42nd minute when he collected a Matt Jarvis pass and shot past Mark Schwarzer. Jarvis made it 2-0 in first-half stoppage time, pouncing after Roger Johnson's header had come back off a post.

The result means Wolves have recorded back-to-back league wins at the start of a season for the first time since 1998/99.