McCarthy: Championship Won't Be Any Easier Friday, 6th May 2016 06:00 Town boss Mick McCarthy says the Championship won’t get any easier next season with the sides currently in the top six that fail to go up via the play-offs joined in the division by some big clubs coming down from the Premier League. "Aston Villa’s relegation has already been confirmed, while North-East giants Newcastle and Sunderland and the Blues' East Anglian rivals Norwich City are battling to avoid filling the other two spots in the bottom three. “The play-offs are going to be interesting to start with,” McCarthy said. “There’s only one exciting game left this weekend, only the Middlesbrough-Brighton match has anything riding on it. “OK, Charlton and Burnley for the Championship title, but Burnley are already promoted, so win it or not they’re still going to be in the Premier League. “And, of course, who is in the play-offs is all sorted out. If it ends up being Middlesbrough or Brighton, Sheffield Wednesday, Hull and Derby, they’ll be four big teams, big squads, expensive squads. “I wonder if any of those will get dismantled or they’ll continue to invest. "And then the three that come down will be huge teams with finance because of their parachute payments. It’s not going to make it any easier next year, not at all.” Reflecting on the season just gone, with the Blues set to finish in seventh or eighth depending on this weekend’s results, McCarthy says he always believed Town would be good enough to be involved in the fight for a top-six place. “I was confident that we’d be a competitive team and we’d threaten the top six and that’s just what we’ve done,” he said. “But we’ve had a difficult end to it and we’ve missed players. Everybody’s missed them, but perhaps some have gone out and invested heavily. “Sheffield Wednesday, who will finish in sixth, signed Aiden McGeady and Gary Hooper at the last knockings. “I’m not complaining about that because they’re out of our grasp anyway, but that’s just helped them over the line when they’ve lost players. We unfortunately lost four of our more creative players and it’s affected us.” He added: “I can’t remember every year when I’ve lost players but I doubt very much that I’ve lost four of the more influential ones. “If they were all fit they’d all be playing. Murph, Didzy, Ryan Fraser and Bish, they’d have all had a lot of games this year.” What has he learnt from the season? “I’ve learnt loads of things, some I’d share, some I wouldn’t. None of which come to mind freely just as somebody asks me the question, it’s too broad a question to sit down and be asked, you have to think about that. “There are incidents that have happened throughout the season, some good, some bad, some indifferent. Some decisions I’ve made, some good ones, some bad ones, some that may well have affected the team. “I think more of my decisions have affected the team positively than negatively, that’s why I’m still in the job and have been for the last 24 years, that’s been on a consistent basis. “So, lots of things. Every year I go away and think that not too much has surprised me but I always learn something.” While McCarthy would love to have had three more games and a shot at reaching the Premier League, after Saturday’s game he and the squad will be off for what he believes is a well-earned break. “The silver lining is that I’m going on my holidays,” he said. “I’m ready for it. If we’d got three more games coming up then I’d be delighted and I’d still be hard at it and wired like everybody else that’s going to be in the play-offs. “But when you’re not going to be in the play-offs, it’s very hard then not to let your guard down by a small margin. We play and we want to win, I always want to win, the team wants to win, but we’re not playing to get into a play-off or to go up or, God forbid, to get out of the relegation zone, so it does just take the edge of it slightly. “And I’m ready for my holidays. I think I’ve earnt one, I think the players have earnt one and we’re all looking forward to it.” Meanwhile, the Town boss says he was delighted to see Leicester win the Premier League. “I think it’s wonderful,” he continued. “I think it’s wonderful for the game, for the sport in general. “For every single fan around the world it’s suddenly given them renewed optimism and hope that that could be their club, that could be their team, that could be them. And isn’t that nice? “I think they’ve been fabulous, I think one or two of the other bigger clubs, for want of a better word, those more established in the Premier League, will be hanging their heads in shame thinking that Leicester City have beaten them. “Not because of how Leicester have played but because with all the money spent and the investment made elsewhere they should have been better. “But fair play to Leicester, from Christmas onwards, when you get to that stage they weren’t there by fluke, they were there because they were a good team and hard to play against. I hoped they’d win it, and they have. I’m delighted for them. “I don’t know Claudio Ranieri, I came across him once in my career, but he seems such a decent fella, a lovely human being and a really personable guy. He’s got a good CV, he’s got an even better one now.”
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