McCarthy: Up to Us to Win Back Fans Saturday, 6th Aug 2016 06:00 Blues boss Mick McCarthy accepts it’s down to him and his players to win back stay away fans with their performances at Portman Road during the season ahead. Town’s season ticket sales are down 1,000 on the same point last year to around 12,000 after what McCarthy admits was a disappointing home campaign last year, despite the Blues ultimately finishing in seventh. “It takes a lot to earn their money and to hand it over to a football club is another thing altogether,” said the Town manager, whose side is expected to be watched by a crowd of 17,000 or 18,000 when they take on Barnsley in this season's opening fixture at Portman Road this afternoon. “It is up to us, of course it is. It’s our performances that determine it. And they were a bit flat, the home performances especially, which was unusual because in the years before it’s always been a bit of a fortress here, we were excellent. “But each season’s different, so let’s hope it’s another excellent season at home for us.” He added: “We want to win games, we want 20,000-plus in here, we want to entertain them, we want to score goals and we want to bring them back in. “If we’ve got that in here because we’re doing it, they’ll come away and watch us anyway. That consistency, home and away wins. We need them both.” McCarthy has aimed to get his side playing more attractive football during pre-season while retaining the many of their previous attributes. “Still the same, kill the opposition, stop them playing, play the way we want to play,” he said. “If you set off with just the intention that we’re just going to play and it’s going to be, ‘Oh well, we’ll play and they’ll let us play’, then that ain’t going to work. “So, stop them playing first and foremost and then inflict what we want to do on them. And that’s never changed. “Out-work them, out-scrap them, out-fight them. If we can do that we’ve got a better chance of winning.” He added: “We will look at the opposition, how they play, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, freekicks, corners, as we always do. But we’ll attempt to play the way we want to play.” The Town boss is hoping to begin the season in a positive manner: “A good start is important. We’ve got a home game against a team that’s been promoted and we were seventh and were trying to get out of the other end of the league. “We need to put our marker down. We need to put a stamp down and let’s see if we can. “It’s not going to be easy because there are no easy games, we saw last year. You think of the three teams that went down, Bolton, Charlton and the MK Dons, I can’t remember having an easy game against any of those.” Regarding the Blues’ undistinguished pre-season friendly campaign in which they lost to Barnet and Belgian second division side Royale Union Saint-Gilloise and drew with Cambridge and Charlton, he said: “I’m not bothered about the pre-season at all. We’ve tried to adapt and change a little bit and be a bit more considered and subtle with the ball and I think we have. “I thought we were excellent for 70 minutes against Royale Union Saint-Gilloise but we gave two awful goals away. “I came off and I was raging and shouldn’t have been because we should have beaten them by about four.” Meanwhile, former Blue Kevin Foley, 31, has joined Charlton Athletic on a deal to January following a trial. Elsewhere, Fulham beat Newcastle United in the Championship's first game of the season at Craven Cottage last night, Matt Smith scoring the winning goal just before half-time.
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