Town manager Mick McCarthy says he knows just how his friend Ian Holloway will be feeling with his Millwall side currently struggling at the wrong end of the table and having been beaten 4-0 by League One Bradford in the FA Cup on Wednesday.

“I know Ollie fairly well,” he said. “You get real friends and you get football friends and people who are colleagues in the game and he’s always been one that I’ve been very friendly with and kept in contact with.

“He’s always one who will come in and have a bottle or water or a bottle of beer and have a chat afterwards and talk openly and honestly about it. I’ve always had a lot of time for Ollie, he’s a good guy.

“But Ollie would give me as much sympathy as I would on Saturday, that’s certainly not going to be forthcoming from either of us.

“But I always have sympathy for anybody that’s in that position and they’re getting a bit of stick.”

Reflecting on his own battles at the wrong end of league tables, McCarthy says being able to think clearly is key to getting out of trouble: “That’s when you’ve got to have clarity of thought and make your decisions or have people around you who can help you, speak to you and assist you in making those decisions.

“But ultimately those decisions rest with me or Ian Holloway, the manager, the guy who is picking the team.

“You certainly have fewer pals, that’s for sure. You might find pals from somewhere that you didn’t know you had because someone will pick the phone up and ring you and just give you a chin up and tell you to crack on with it, which is always nice.

“It’s a very lonely place because you find you’re walking around the town that you’re working in and people don’t talk to you.

“It’s generally not because people don’t like you or don’t want to talk to you, it’s that they don’t know what to say to you. And if they do say something it’s generally something that upsets you.

“I think they generally think it’s better to keep their mouths shut. And then you get the odd one or two who do say it and it doesn’t make you feel any better at all.”

He says the Millwall squad will be very down after Wednesday’s heavy defeat to lower league opposition: “You feel pretty low and dreadful and are wondering where the next result is going to come from.

“The games come thick and fast here and they’ve got to turn it around having travelled back.

“We had it, we were struggling at the time I came in and we went to Birmingham and won and then we lost at Palace, heavily.

“Then we had a result, then we lost at Leicester, more heavily. I think you’ve got to try and keep your levels, keep calm and try and reason with it because sometimes all reason goes out of the window.

“You can’t get a result and you suddenly start to think nobody can play in this position or that position and you ask ‘Can he do that?’. And it’s the same with players, they start to doubt themselves.

“But one result can turn it around, strangely enough, that’s the beauty of the game. For all the negative thoughts you might start to have, you turn up, you get a good result through a good decision, a great goal, a bit of magic, somebody’s mistake and you win 1-0 and suddenly it all comes flooding back, all that that you think you’ve lost forever. It’s great.”

McCarthy says there’s no such thing as an easy job in football management: “All of them are tough, all the jobs are and it’s lovely when you’re winning games and everybody’s patting you on the back.

“We’ve just lost two, we need to win a game now and if you start slipping down the league and you’re getting near the bottom everybody starts doubting you and questioning your ability to manage and to coach and everything else comes into question, your personality.

“He’ll be experiencing all that but all I know is that Ollie is a real good football man. When you think about the team he took to the Premier League at Blackpool it was quite outstanding and excited everybody with a brand of football which was not known for a team that has been promoted.

“He has his real good qualities and I’m sad if he’s getting abuse because it’s not nice.”

Photo: Action Images

StuartBrett8 added 08:52 - Jan 17 I like Ian Holloway, he's hilarious.... But him and Millwall isn't working
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