Albion boss Sami Hyypia would love to get the better of Mick McCarthy at Ipswich tonight.

Hyypia has nothing against McCarthy, far from it.

The 40-year-old Finn has great admiration for his fellow former centre-half and maturer member of the manager's union.

McCarthy, 55, has guided Sunderland and Wolves to promotion to the Premier League during a 22-year career in the technical area.

Hyypia, a playing target for McCarthy at Wolves after he finished at Liverpool and a managerial novice by comparison, would derive extra satisfaction from a victory over somebody with the experience and nous of the ex-Republic of Ireland chief.

Hyypia told The Argus: "He is a very good manager and he has showed for years that he can do a good job. The experience to have done it before and the experience of managing in the Premier League I think helps him a lot today as well.

"It's a game of 90 minutes and we'll go head-to-head and it really doesn't matter for me who is on the opposite side, I want to win.

"And, of course, when you win against these experienced guys that's a great feeling.

"It will be a tough game. We'll need to defend a little bit better than we did at Brentford."

Albion will also need to be aware of a well-drilled, high-octane approach from McCarthy's Ipswich.

They beat Millwall, where he cut his managerial teeth, 2-0 at Portman Road on Saturday, to end a five-match winless sequence including a Capital One Cup exit at Crawley and move a point and three places above Albion in the early table.

Hyypia said: "I think his teams usually like to press the opposition and I would think that, being en ex-centre back, that organisation is very important for him.

"And from what I have seen of his teams in the past they play at a high tempo, so that is one thing we are going to face and we are going to face strong players in one-against-one situations. We need to cope with that."

How The Managers Compare

Sami Hyypia Matches: 100

Wins: 54 Draws: 16 Defeats: 30

Win percentage: 54 (Hyypia shared managerial duties for part of his time at Bayer Leverkusen with Sascha Lewandowksi)

Mick McCarthy Matches: 778

Wins: 305 Draws: 207 Defeats: 266

Win percentage: 39.2