An angry Mick McCarthy felt the Blues let Bristol City off the hook after their 2-1 defeat at Ashton Gate. Ex-Town striker Jon Stead netted in the final minute to seal a victory for the Robins when the Blues should have gone in 2-0 in front at the break.

McCarthy pulled no punches after the game: “Livid, pissed off, annoyed, angry, disappointed. We let them off the hook, we should have won the game.”

He added: “If I wasn’t angry after that… and I really should be delighted by the performance in the main, but I’m not because we lost the game.

"Results determine how I feel over the weekend and I’m going to feel pretty pissed off.”

The result dropped Town to 21st with Birmingham and Sheffield Wednesday both winning away. The bottom three sides, Peterborough, Barnsley and Bristol City all have a game in hand over the Blues.

McCarthy believes his team should find themselves in a much healthier position this evening: “I think we’ve had the best of the chances in the game, but we’ve lost it, so there’s no point in me talking about what might have been.

“What has happened is that we’ve been beaten in the game and I see the others around us have won, which makes it harder still.”

Having gone ahead via Daryl Murphy, Town should have gone 2-0 in front when Lee Martin missed a golden opportunity from a McGoldrck cross, an incident McCarthy thought gave the home team a boost.

“Certainly, that gave them a lift coming out for the second half,” he said. “We should have been 2-0 up, there’s no question about that.

“And the goal we conceded just after half-time was awful, à la [the game at] Aston Villa. They’ll look it as a great goal by them, but it shouldn’t happen and we’ve let the right off the hook at the end of the game. We’ve got three defenders marking two, it shouldn’t happen, it was awful.”

The Blues boss admitted that he’s concerned that his team have a tendency to let teams off the hook and knows what they have to do to avoid similar situations from occurring again: “We make sure that we don’t get out of position, that’s all.

“We had a great chance to win the game with Lee,” he added. “But one ball up the middle has taken three of our defenders out.”

Bristol City’s winning goalscorer Stead, who played for McCarthy at Sunderland, was one of a number of players the Blues boss felt was out to impress new Robins manager Sean O’Driscoll: “They had a few with a point to prove.

“Steven Davies came on and played very well having lost Ryan Taylor up front. I thought he played well and Jon Stead had a point to prove.

“They’ve had their noses out of joint. A new manager - does it have an effect? Quite clearly it does, but it has an effect if you let them off the hook in the first place, which we did.

“It wouldn’t have mattered who had come on to the pitch if we’d defended the first. And if we’d put the second one in when we should have done, it wouldn’t have mattered, but all that’s hypothetical now.”

He says he may be able to take positives from the game later on down the line — strikers David McGoldrick and Daryl Murphy combined well — but not in the immediate aftermath of the game: “Of course there will be [positives], but that’s not for this moment in time.

“You’re asking me how I feel and everything else is a silver lining on what is a pretty dark horrible cloud on my head at the minute.”

As we go into the final week of the transfer window, McCarthy says there are deals for potential additions to his squad currently ongoing: “Yes, let’s see what happens.”

Bristol City boss Sean O’Driscoll was delighted with his team’s victory: “It’s always nice to get off the mark at home when you come to a new team.

“We weathered a bit of a storm and changed things tactically and I’m delighted with the attitude and character the players showed more than anything else.”

Photo: Action Images

bluetractor73 added 19:27 - Jan 27 easy solution drop edwards and martin and replace with murphy on left and mclean on right with either nouble or chopra to play alongside mccoldrick as martin and edwards are not giving anything to the team wingers are supposed to create chances for the strikers but neither are doing it how do you expect strikers to score when there not getting the service
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theobald1985 added 19:46 - Jan 27 i just think the atmosphere created by the negativity makes edwards and martin more cautious in what they do.If martin took somebody on and did not get past them all the negative comments start everybody huffing and puffing when really if he takes a man on 10 times say and only beats him 5 time and of them 5 times he only puts in 2-3 good balls in but 1 of those crosses is converted to me i think thats fine.the problem is the negativity means him and edwards dont try it to take them on 10 times.I coach an under 8 side and i only encourage them to be creative and take people on and in the final third we run at people but the lads can do that with the confidence that nobody will moan at them.kids football both in the positive play and positive support is football at its absolute pureist.I think we should look to that as an example

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Fatcatevans added 20:07 - Jan 27 The problem is none of his crosses lead to goals and if as a professional footballer he can't take criticism then I,m afraid he,s too thin skinned. I agree that support and confidence helps but the facts speak for themselves Martin is a liability
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RedDust added 22:44 - Jan 27 3 months ago we were cut adrift at the bottom of the table by a considerable points gap. today we stand 6 points out of it.. if the fans were given this position 3 months ago there would not be any complaining!
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Tractastic added 23:43 - Jan 27 If we continue with the current midfield we are seriously in danger of going down. Poor at protecting the back four and verging on the hopeless supporting the front two means we are likely to concede goals and struggle to score. As for Martin i have tried to support him for years but now just had enough.No end product,no goals,no creativity...he really is the last reminder along with Edwards of what a dreadful place Roy Keane put this club in. Would love to see them both go at the end of the season. But come on big Mick we have faith in you so sort out the midfield NOW.

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