Town boss Mick McCarthy says the mood in the squad remains positive despite the recent drop in form.

“They’re all fine,” McCarthy said. “They’re not sat in the dressing room with their heads in the hands. But confidence does take a dent, of course.

"But how do you get it back? I’ve said it before, where does momentum come from, where does it go, how do you get it back?

“I think you get back to doing what we’ve always done and that’s working hard and putting teams under real pressure here. You get a goal and suddenly it comes flooding back.

“Had that chance gone in after 20 seconds [at Rotherham] then who knows? But it just didn’t, so we’ve got to regroup and go again.”

He hopes that his own positive demeanour rubs off on his squad: “I think it does. If I come in and I’m miserable and surly and grumpy and horrible, which I don’t ever do, then I could expect players to be that way, couldn’t I?

“It’s not an act this, this is me and I hope that rubs off on the players all the time, not just on a Monday morning or whenever else I might be sat in front of the cameras.”

Despite the Blues having dropped to fifth, he says everyone remains focused on achieving a top-two finish: “We’ve got to be, we’ve got to look there. We’ll aim for that and if the worst happens to us is that we get a play-off spot it’ll be brilliant.

“We’d have taken that at the start of the season but we’ll aim for the top. Who knows?

"Whatever happens against Sheffield Wednesday, all we can ever do is go into it and be positive and try and make sure we get that result and suddenly it all seems a little bit different.

“And we don’t know what other results might happen. We can only plan for Sheffield Wednesday.”

Town’s cause could be helped by results elsewhere this evening with leaders Bournemouth at home to second-placed Derby and Brentford, who are fourth, at home to sixth-placed Watford.

Middlesbrough, in third, face bottom club Blackpool away and will be looking to break into the top two.

Photo: Action Images

battyblue added 08:00 - Feb 10 I believe there are two or three in the team thinking o sod it i don't like the system we are playing and that goes for a lot of supporters as well gates are dropping again as do the team MM needs to get the team passing the ball with a different formation and using some of the squad sitting on there backsides week in week out while they watch some on the pitch barely going through the motions, i am sure that must be confidence building. Mcgoldrick is pi--ed off because he has to go looking for the ball all the time normally back to the halfway line.Mings is pi--ed off because Mick wont let him make forward runs into there box players don't get tired with two matches in seventeen days just a poor excuse by MM for players going through the motions. All said and done i believe we will win tonight and then loose on Saturday.

1

pazelle added 11:20 - Feb 10 I don't like all this "aim for 2nd" talk - just take one team at a time, do your best and see where your best gets you. You've only got this one match! That's all you've ever got! So give it your all and see what happens!
1

HackneyBlue added 16:23 - Feb 10 Its called having a plan B,plan A is not working so change to B
0

Blogs 295 bloggers

Ipswich Town Polls