Kenny Cunningham believes former Ireland boss Mick McCarthy has matured as a manager over the years.

Joining Off The Ball and Ireland left-back Stephen Ward on tonight's show to share his observations of the Ipswich manager, the ex-Boys in Green defender highlighted his former boss's development. 

"I see a far better manager now than the first manager I worked with at Millwall. I think he has developed and he's matured," said Cunningham.

"He certainly wore his heart on his sleeve and let his feelings be known when he was a young manager. But I think he's very much more in check now at Ipswich. I think he's at his very peak."  

McCarthy has guided Ipswich up to third in the Championship, one point behind the second tier's leaders. If he takes the Tractor Boys up, it would be the third side that he will have guided to the hallowed soil of the Premier League after similar achievements at Sunderland and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

However, he not enjoyed the same level of success at top flight level and Cunningham thinks a lack of resources at the Black Cats and Wolves hampered him.

"With limited resources, I thought he made a fighting job of it," he said.

Ward, who was brought to Wolves from Bohemians by McCarthy in 2007, still believes that the club made a mistake in sacking the former Ireland boss.

"It was only then that people realised how good a job Mick had done. He probably didn't get the credit he deserved for the first couple of years," said the Burnley full-back.

Cunningham, who played for McCarthy at Millwall in the early '90s and then at international level, set out some of his strengths such as man-management and suggested that he did make some tactical changes which flew under the radar while at Wolves.