McCarthy believes Doyle produced one of the best displays ever seen by a Wolves centre-forward during Tuesday's goalless draw with Liverpool when he played as the sole striker in a 4-5-1 formation. Doyle made the £6.5 million switch from Reading in the summer and has produced performances of a consistently high standard and also weighed in with five of Wolves' paltry tally of 17 top flight goals in 22 matches. McCarthy said: "If anyone has seen a better centre-forward display at Molineux than against Liverpool, then I would like to see it. "That was a classic performance from Kevin Doyle. He was outstanding. If he had scored to top it off, it would have been a 10 plus rating out of 10 performance. "I thought we were getting a really good player when we signed him because I knew him from the Irish squads and playing against Wolves with Reading for a couple of seasons. "I've not been surprised with how well he has done and have been absolutely thrilled with him overall with his personality around the place, his contribution to the club. "He is a terrific player and, whatever we paid for him, he is worth every single penny. "Kevin Doyle took to the one striker role excellently but I had spoken to him about that role when he came. He is more than comfortable with that. I think he enjoyed it. He looked like he did." McCarthy knows the importance of not losing against Phil Brown's side and will not adopt a gung-ho approach despite the Tigers having the worst defensive record in the top flight. He said: "We want to stay in the games and it is not going to be an easy game. They have been playing 4-3-3, 4-5-1, with an extra man in midfield. "The reality is we want to stay in the game, We don't want to go to Hull and be chasing the game and get done. "It is alright saying we want to win. We don't want to lose, that's for sure. We won't be going to Hull and being gung-ho." McCarthy is demanding the same level of performance as was demonstrated against Liverpool who managed only one worthwhile effort on goal throughout the 90 minutes. He said: "I think we have got a good squad. It's the consistency that we need. "The performance against Liverpool was terrific but we need a similar one versus Hull to get something out of the game. "By that I mean making no mistakes, having no-one sent off, not having anyone slip, not having someone giving a bad back pass, or someone not marking from a corner kick." McCarthy has been widely linked with a move for Hull midfielder Stephen Hunt and is expected to step up his attempts to sign him before the transfer window closes. But he does not believe the speculation surrounding Hunt will affect the performance level of the former Reading player when he faces his prospective future employers. McCarthy said: "I can't say I know Stephen Hunt that well but watching him play, I'll don't think he'll be bothered by all that has been said. "He had all that stuff with Petr Cech when he got injured and then went back and played and scored at Chelsea for Hull. "Am I optimistic he will be a player at Wolves next week? I've never said that I've bid for him. I never have and I'm not aware that Jez Moxey (chief executive) has ever said that. "I think we've said we've put multi-million bids in for people and people have made the assumption it is for Stephen Hunt but, as you know, assumption is the mother of all cock-ups." Wolves defender George Elokobi is expected to recover from illness in time to be available to face Hull.
