Wolves boss Mick McCarthy is confident his second-from-bottom side can survive

Wolves boss Mick McCarthy is confident his side can avoid relegation despite being held to a 1-1 draw by Fulham.

Steven Fletcher put Wolves on their way to a win that would have hauled them clear of the bottom three, but Andrew Johnson hit an 80th-minute equaliser.

"It might be the point that keeps us in the league, who knows?" McCarthy mused.

"Everybody is predicting what it will take. I predict maybe one point or one goal more than three others [relegation rivals] - and we can still do it."

Things looked good for Wolves when Fletcher put them ahead against the run of play on 22 minutes.

But substitute Johnson, who had only been on the field for 18 seconds, denied the home side a priceless win.

The result leaves McCarthy's side, who were bottom of the league table at the beginning of the afternoon, in 19th place on 33 points, one adrift of both Wigan and 17th-placed Blackpool, both of whom have played a game more.

Mathematically, therefore, Wolves' fate remains in their own hands - which means McCarthy won't be throwing in the towel just yet.

"Every point is hard to get - Fulham are a good side," he said.

"I think other teams could have gone on and got beaten in that game, having conceded how we did and that late on.

"But we haven't, so we'll take the point, take the positives and keep going with five more games to play. There will be no defeatists here or negativity at all."

Nor will there be any talk of Wolves needing nine more points to achieve safety, a view which McCarthy insists has been wrongly attributed to him.

"Three wins would be lovely, but I'm not so sure it will take that," he added.

"You tell me all the teams out of the bottom three that are going to get those two or three wins, and where they are going to come from.

"I don't know, so I'm not going to put pressure on our lot by saying we need three wins.

"We don't - we just need one point more than three others. Who knows where that will come from, but I still think we will get it."

McCarthy's Fulham counterpart, Mark Hughes, played down the show of anger that led to him being sent to the stands by referee Michael Oliver following a Brede Hangeland booking.

"I was disappointed because I felt Brede had won the ball," said Hughes, who made something of a meal of kicking over a row of pitchside water bottles.

"The referee interpreted it in a different way and saw it fit to book my player for a challenge I thought was fair, so that is why I reacted.

"Probably the fourth official played a part in my dismissal and it was for missing the bottle I was aiming at three times - that was poor play from my point of view!"

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