McCarthy: Small Squad Has Its Benefits Saturday, 19th Apr 2014 06:00 Boss Mick McCarthy sees both positives and negatives in having a relatively small squad, as he has had at Town this season. Asked whether he would like more players at his disposal next season, the Blues manager said: “Sometimes I would and other times I wouldn’t. I’d like the same amount who are the same, physically fit specimens that these are, they’re fantastic. “The nucleus of the team will be here anyway and it’s adding players to it who are fit, play games, stay fit and are focused. There’s nothing worse for some of them if they’re just travelling and sitting up in the stand. “This year I’ve been down to 18 and sometimes I’ve had to bring some of the kids in to fill the squad up. “There are pluses and minuses for both of those. But when you’ve only got 18 they’ve all got a chance of playing and I think that keeps them happy.” With Financial Fair Play meaning Championship clubs no longer able to splash the cash in the manner they once did, McCarthy built his squad on a comparative shoestring last summer. The “next to nowt” handed over to Chippenham Town for Tyrone Mings was the only fee paid for one of the XI which started against Doncaster last week, although training compensation would also have been due to his former clubs when Tommy Smith moved over from New Zealand to join the Blues’ academy at 16. McCarthy says you don’t need to splash out vast sums to put a decent side together: “I take a lot of pride in my team, whether we bought them or got them on loan or however. It’s how they perform week in, week out. It doesn’t matter whether we spent money on them or not. “You don’t [have to spend millions to build a team], Burnley are proving that as well. They have spent a few quid, but it can be done.” As for Mings, he says he’ll continue to look for similar potential gems in non-league, as he previously did while at Wolves. “He came in from Chippenham for next to nowt,” the Town boss continued. “It’s lovely when you pick them up. We keep trying it with different ones, some with success, others without success. “But when you’re picking them up and not paying them a great deal of money and giving people opportunities, if you find one out of 10 like Tyrone you’ve done all right.” Amongst last summer’s recruits were a number of players from clubs relegated out of the Championship, but he says even sides that go down have talented players in their ranks. “I have to look beyond that and look beyond people’s comments because that’s what I’m paid to do,” he added. “If you thought for one minute that I didn’t give it any thought that I’d just signed Dean Gerken, Paul Anderson and Cole Skuse all from Bristol City who had been relegated. “But then relegated teams have good players in them, it’s a matter of getting the best out of them and I think we probably have, certainly we have. All of them have contributed hugely to this season for us.” He says playing talent isn’t the only thing he assesses when he considers signing a player, character is also important. “I think you get a fair insight into the personality when you watch them play and how they deal with things,” he said. “And then we have eyes and ears around the game from whom we can find out about people. Some of them can be very, very surprising actually.”
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