Town manager Mick McCarthy says he is pleased with the way his side has played in their first two Championship games, despite falling to a 1-0 defeat at Reading on Saturday.

“I’m pleased, having watched Saturday's game back yesterday morning, with how well we played,” said McCarthy, whose team previously beat Fulham 2-1 at home on the opening week of the season.

“For 20 minutes we were excellent, on 25 we made a mistake and that changed the course of the game.

“The momentum changes and they had a bit more of the game. Then in the second half we were the dominant team. In both league games we’ve played very well, so I’m pleased with it.”

He says managers can never be quite sure how their teams are going to perform until the campaign proper gets underway: “You can go into the first game of the season thinking you’ve had a great pre-season, you’ve done all right, you’ve got a good squad, the lads are all good and then you get slapped.

“And straight away you start looking at it and thinking ‘is it as good as I thought it was?’ and vice versa.

“Everybody’s predicting what’s going to happen up at Leeds because of what’s happened there and they have a great result against Middlesbrough.

“OK, there was an overhead kick that was disallowed, but suddenly they’ve lost one and they’ve won one the same as us, and we’re supposed to have had a good start and they supposedly haven’t had a good start. We’re two games in, it’s really hard to judge.”

Only Bournemouth and Millwall still have 100 per cent records and McCarthy says it’s no shock to him that the Cherries are setting the pace: “Bournemouth doesn’t surprise me.

“Would we have tipped Millwall after that? Somebody told me that they haven’t lost since March, they’ve had a great run.

“They finished on a high, they finished with momentum and they’ve started that way. Ollie’s got a great track record in this league.

“So, you look at it and you wonder where the surprises are and I guess the surprises are at the bottom of the league with Fulham with no points. That’s a bit of a surprise.

"But we’ll wait and see. We’ll see what 10 games brings and then see where we all are.”

Tonight’s game at Birmingham is Town’s fourth in the first 11 days of the campaign, which he says can be hard going for players: “It is tough, I hear people going ‘tough? It’s their job they should be fit!’ and all that nonsense, but you have to get prepared for them and they are physically demanding.

“This Championship is tough. The older ones, the maturer ones, the more senior ones do cope because they’ve done it before. Some of the younger ones find it really difficult but in the main we’ve coped OK.”

McCarthy says he’s happy with his squad as it stands presently - “I’m pleased with it” - but doesn’t rule out further additions: “Possibly.”

Photo: Action Images

tractorboyz82 added 07:03 - Aug 19 Well if you want to challenge the top six you need three maybe four additions or it going to be mid table
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bluefeast added 09:03 - Aug 19 we need to employ Frank on the right of mid like we did vs derby 2nd half last season ,pace power and team player ,stick anderson on the left and get tabb to play last 10 mins of games as and when.
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JustSpivvyChops added 17:21 - Aug 19 If the manager is pleased to lose 1-0 to a side that put in a well below average performance and was riddled with injuries, then he must have unbelievably low expectations.............people are starting to see through Mick...........some of us have known your limitations from the start.....great job to keep us up, should have been removed at that point.
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JustSpivvyChops added 17:23 - Aug 19 In your defence Mick, there's nobody out there likely to do any better with no money to spend.....but at least we might finish mid table and see some attacking football under a different manager, than finish mid table after a season of defensive bore fests....
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