Just Who Is Mick McCarthy's Best Signing? (Part V)

With Steven Fletcher becoming Mick McCarthy's 38th signing since arriving in summer 2006, I decided to take a look at some of McCarthy's better signings. Each day this week, I will be taking a look at 2 players, and then on Friday you can vote for your favourite. I'm not necessarily looking just for value for money, but someone who has took the fans by surprise or drastically improved the team.

Karl Henry from Stoke, £100,000

Apps: 163 (4)

Goals: 7

Few captains in the history of Wolverhampton Wanderers can have divided the fans opinion as much as Karl Henry, let alone a Championship winning captain.  To some, he is a waste of a place. Scared to push the ball forward, and doesn't impose himself on the game the way other defensive midfielders do. To others, his defensive positioning has contributed massively to our defensive record this season, while in possession he is unflustered, and prepared to recognise his limitations by giving the ball to the more technically gifted players. What no-one can dispute is his passion for Wolves (the club he supported as a boy), or the work rate he shows. I've lost count of the times where he's successfully covered our fullbacks after an attacking move has broken down.

The only one of McCarthy’s initial signings to still hold a regular place in the team, Henry has been a vital cog in the machine over the past 4 seasons, whether at right-back for a spell in 2006/07 season, or in his usual position in front of the back-4. He appears to have adapted to the Premiership well, starting every game in which he was available, except for the game at Old Trafford. For me, his best game came away at Burnley. On their awful pitch, Jones and Guedioura were bogged down, yet Henry was able to assert him calmness into the game, rarely giving away the ball, and he would have picked up a lovely assist had Sylvan Ebanks-Blake had his shooting boots on.

Gary Breen from Sunderland, Free

Apps: 64

Goals: 1
Breen wasn't technically a Mick McCarthy signing, arriving 3 days before McCarthy’s appointment, but few can doubt that McCarthy had a large role in persuading Breen to join Wolves, having previously managed him for both Ireland and Sunderland. That summer, Wolves had lost the jewel in their crown, Joleon Lescott, to Everton. Undoubtedly Breen had big shoes to fill, and the biggest compliment I can pay him, is that for the first 6 months, we hardly missed Lescott at all. Commanding at the back, and showing composure on the ball, Breen was a calming influence on all of those around him. Unfortunately, the one mistake I remember him making allowed Kevin Philips to score at Molineux in the Playoffs.

Its my belief that Breen was a massively important player for us during 2006/07. McCarthy walked into a team, stripped of its best players and heavily reliant on youth. Without Breen as his on field marshal, we could have easily have sunk rather than swam, and the leadership and experience of Breen can only have helped the younger, more inexperienced players around him. The following season, as the team was expected to progress, Breen struggled; age catching up with him. There was a dressing room bust-up between Breen and McCarthy following a late Southampton equaliser, and Breen only played five more games in Old Gold. By this time, the team was starting to leave him behind, and was slowly turning into the team that would take the Championship by storm the following season. Breen’s importance was not during that season, it was during his first six months at the club, and we couldn’t have asked for a finer leader.