And he kept his nerve in drilling home a late equaliser from the penalty spot to cancel out Gabriel Agbonlahor’s sixth goal of the campaign.

McCarthy said: “Sylvan has been desperate to get his first goal. We all believe he can play in the Premier League and score goals in it.

“Don’t anyone under-estimate the taking of that penalty in that atmosphere. He has still got to score it and it was a fairly emphatic finish.”

McCarthy also felt Wolves should have had a first half spot-kick after Villa defender Richard Dunne appeared to hold back Kevin Doyle.

But McCarthy dismissed the notion that a bigger name player than the Republic of Ireland international would have been awarded the penalty.

He said: “If it is a pull of the shirt or a push, it is a penalty and I thought it was.

“But I think it is unfair to say that a bigger name would have got the penalty.

“Kevin is a terrific footballer. He is Ireland’s number nine, a Premier League player who has scored goals at this level.”

McCarthy added: “I could argue we didn’t get a penalty at Sunderland and here against Portsmouth and should have had one. But the referees give the decisions honestly.

“When you go a goal down, you are glad to get a point. When you go a goal down, teams often shut up shop. They didn’t and we had chances and it was Villa who were hanging on at the end.”

Villa boss Martin O’Neill was upset with his side’s first-half performance after the impressive display in the home win over Chelsea a week ago.

He said: “I am disappointed. We didn’t play well in the first half. We couldn’t get it down and play. There was not a great deal of football played in the first half.

“I thought we improved significantly in the second half. We looked able to cope and limited them to very little.

“This was always going to be a tough game for us. It was a derby which makes it hard in itself against a side playing with plenty of spirit and enthusiasm.

“I am just disappointed that we didn’t get to grip with the game early enough and that really would be it.

“Having played so well in the last couple of games, having gone into this game with loads of confidence, and wanting to impose ourselves quickly, we didn’t do that and that was the disappointment.”