Mick McCarthy admitted Wolves could have no complaints about their Carling Cup exit in a penalty shootout to League Two Rotherham.

For the second time in three seasons Wolves exited to a lower league team thanks to losing on spot kicks, this time in the strange surroundings, footballing-wise at least, of Sheffield's Don Valley Stadium.

But Mick was not making any excuses for his team's defeat at the hands of a Millers outfit which has started the season in even better form than Wolves.

"I'm not going to level any sort of reasoning or excuse behind it," Mick said when asked about the stadium.

"We're professional and should be able to deal with that.

"There's nothing wrong with the stadium and the pitch is lovely, I've no complaints on that score.

"Rotherham played well - they got men behind the ball and made it difficult for us.

"I don't think our better players did particularly well on the night but I think we should give Rotherham credit rather than look for any reasons for our performance.

"They played well, stopped us playing and competed equally as well as we did.

"I don't think either team deserved to win it over the 90 minutes or indeed the half an hour of extra time.

"You'd think the Championship team might have the edge on that but we didn't and they have taken better penalties than us and won the game because of it."

Wolves fielded a much changed team to that which hit the heights in Saturday's win at Ipswich, with Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Matt Jarvis not travelling due to slight foot and hip problems.

Mick expects both to be fit for Saturday's Championship clash with Nottingham Forest, and hopefully too Sam Vokes, for whom an injury picked up in training on Monday meant he didn't start last night's game as planned.

There were also further problems with Andy Keogh suffering a stomach upset which forced Mick to throw Chris Iwelumo on earlier than anticipated.

The news on George Elokobi isn't great either, with the defender having undergone a scan on the knee injury sustained at Portman Road.

Wolves' medical team are due to go through the results in detail, but Mick has revealed the initial findings aren't positive.

"We think George has damaged all the ligaments in his knee to some magnitude or other," he said.

"We don't know completely yet, it's just settling down, but it's a bad injury.

"It looks like he's got damage to his medial, his lateral and his anterior cruciate."

Back on the pitch all attentions now turn to preserving the early season promise and indeed unbeaten league run when Forest visit on Saturday.

"We hadn't been beaten since Wrexham but now we've lost, albeit on penalties," Mick added.

"We knew this would never be an easy game, but now we have to bounce back, like we always try to."

PICTURED: Dave Edwards strives to get forward during last night's game.