Town Out to Bounce Back From Derby Disappointment Against Cardiff Tuesday, 20th Feb 2018 19:30 Town will be looking to bounce back from their last-gasp East Anglian derby disappointment when second-placed Cardiff City visit Portman Road on Wednesday evening. The Bluebirds go into the match very much in form having been unbeaten in seven league games since New Year’s Day, winning their last two, a 2-0 home victory over Bolton having been followed by a 1-0 success against Middlesbrough, also at the Cardiff City Stadium. “About time they did then, isn’t it? That’s my view on it,” McCarthy responded when told of Cardiff’s recent run. “They’re a good side. They’ve got good players and they’ve got a very good manager, who knows this league very well. “I didn’t realise that, I haven’t seen their stats. I don’t look at them, except for the games. I went to watch them against Millwall when they started very well and they were 1-0 up inside three minutes. “But Millwall were excellent and ended up pinning them back. But even at the end there was controversy about scoring a goal and then a penalty and Neil Warnock was able to come on and growl at everybody, which he’s good at. I look forward to growling at him tomorrow.” Earlier in the season the Blues were defeated 3-1 in Cardiff but were the better side for much of the first half having conceded early on. The same then happened at the start of the second half. “We played well and we came in and had the team talk about going out and starting really well but we were 2-0 down before I’d put my backside on the seat,” McCarthy recalled. “That’s disappointing when we’ve done that. We certainly won’t want to start like that.” A rip-roaring performance and a win would do much to help fans put the disappointment of the 1-1 draw at Carrow Road and recent poorer home performances - most notably the 0-0 stalemate with Burton - behind them. “In the end it was like a defeat, it was ridiculous how we felt afterwards. But it’s only to be expected. It was criminal that we gave a goal away,” he added. “It would help everybody, we’d all feel better about it, we would as well. It’s not like we haven’t been trying, we’ve not planned to do anything different to earlier on in the season. “But as I was at pains to point to other people, there are two sides in it. Maybe [other teams] saw us and maybe they treated us lightly in the first five games [of the season]. “We’d just lost 6-1 at Charlton and I don’t know whether people thought we were a bunch of mugs and it turned out we weren’t because we won the first five. “But the league’s settled down, we’re playing against a very good team tomorrow night and they are kind of bedded in, they’ve taken a few good signings in and Neil, who I’ve known for years, is a past master at it. “I’m looking forward to seeing Neil and I’m looking forward to a really good game. I hope we play as well as we did on Sunday.” McCarthy and Warnock go back to their days as players together at Barnsley. The Blues boss says his Cardiff counterpart has always been the same. “Yes, a pain in the backside,” he laughed. “He’s a good pal of mine, Neil. I get on really well with him. I might be one of the few that says that, I have to be honest, but I do and I respect him and the job he’s done everywhere he’s been. “What’s he had, seven promotions? And he’s going to be in the mix for one now, whether he gets in second spot or not remains to be seen. But they’ll be in the mix.” Is it true McCarthy used to clean Warnock’s boots back at Oakwell? “He likes telling everybody that. But that’s true because he’s considerably older than I am. I was an apprentice and he was a very senior pro at the time.” McCarthy isn’t surprised that Cardiff are among the division’s higher flyers: “Not from the start of the season, no. I think he made some really astute signings in the summer. “Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Juniot Hoilett, and he’s got Kenneth Zahore and then he took Gary Madine just before the window closed. It suits him to have those players. “I think the lads at the back, Sol Bamba and Sean Morrison and Bruno Ecuele Manga, the three of them, whether they play a back three or a back four, I think they’re excellent. He’s got a good squad.” He says Cardiff have a battle to stay in second and believes his former club Wolves - who lead the Welshmen by 11 points - already have top spot sewn up. “Yes, there are some good teams there,” he reflected. “There’s none of them are going to catch Wolves, that’s for sure. “I thought Derby would take the second spot when we saw them here, even when we saw them up there. We beat them I know, but they were a good side.
“Villa have been flying but they’ve had their wings clipped by a very good Fulham side. There really are some really good sides up there, it’s going to be a great fight for it.” With the Cardiff match the second of three in seven days, McCarthy has confirmed changes of personnel are likely, while he has to decide whether to switch from the 3-5-2 system utilised at Norwich. The Town boss was happy with how the formation worked out against the Canaries but equally it’s a system which means it’s difficult for him to fit in wide players such as Bersant Celina. Questioned about his plans for Wednesday, McCarthy responded: “You’ll have to see what a wonderful scheme I come up with tomorrow.” Bartosz Bialkowski will continue in goal with the Blues probably returning to their 4-2-3-1 system, a formation which Cardiff have also played in recent matches. Jordan Spence could come in at right-back - McCarthy has tended to switch the former West Ham man and Dominic Iorfa when games have been coming thick and fast - with Jonas Knudsen on the left. McCarthy faces a dilemma whether on-loan Tottenham man Cameron Carter-Vickers or Adam Webster will partner skipper Luke Chambers at the heart of the defence. In midfield, Cole Skuse and Callum Connolly are likely to take up the deeper roles, while Martyn Waghorn will probably to take up the central role in the trio behind lone out-and-out striker Joe Garner. Bersant Celina, David McGoldrick, Grant Ward and Mustapha Carayol - who would be making his full debut - are all candidates for the wider roles. Bluebirds boss Warnock is expecting an eventful night at Portman Road: ”I’m sure Ipswich will have something to say and usually at Ipswich something will happen, whether it’s Sol Bamba assaulting me or something else, something will happen. The fans always give me a rousing reception. “I could have managed them a few years ago, I thought I was going to manage it but they went with a young manager!” He says McCarthy has done an admirable job at Portman Road: “He’s done well. If you’re not the big five or six with the wage bills they have, it’s a very difficult league. “He’s got them with an outside chance of the play-offs and, because I know what it takes, I know how difficult it is. You have to be careful what you wish for and you won’t get much better than Mick. “If I worried about what people said, crikey, I wouldn’t sleep at night. I think we’re providing entertainment at the minute, home and away.” Regarding his former Barnsley team-mate’s four-letter goal celebration on Sunday, he added: “It’s just passion. You don’t carry on if you don’t have a bit of passion, you’d be sat at home. “We’re at the situation where we care and you score a late goal against your rivals, it’s a fabulous feeling and you get carried away at times but that’s what we’re in the game for. You guys wait for us to do something silly like that!” Cardiff midfielder Craig Bryson is closing on on a return after an achilles injury, while Kadeem Harris is also making progress after an ankle problem. Striker Gary Madine isn’t yet ready to return from a broken nose and defender Jazz Richards is out with bone bruising. Town have the upper hand historically, winning 21 (19 in the league), drawing 14 (14) and losing 15 (14). In the Welsh capital in October, Celina was on target for the Blues but his late goal wasn’t enough to prevent Town from falling to a 3-1 defeat. Hoilett put the Bluebirds in front on 12, then Omar Bogle doubled the lead seconds after the break. Celina’s final minute goal threatened to set up an unexpected grandstand finish but Danny Ward’s injury time goal ended Town’s hopes of gaining a surprise point. Last time the teams met at Portman Road in December 2016, Luke Varney netted an equaliser just after half-time as Town drew 1-1 with the Bluebirds, who had central defender Bamba sent off for abuse towards the fourth official during a bizarre second-half temper tantrum before turning on his own manager. Gunnarsson put the visitors ahead following a Bialkowski error in the 38th minute, Varney levelled on 52 but despite the one-man advantage the Blues were unable to find a winner. Former Town keeper Brian Murphy joined Cardiff in the summer of 2016 having been released by Portsmouth. Murphy was with the Blues between January 2010 and the summer of 2011 making 25 appearances. One-time Town loanee Liam Feeney is on loan with Cardiff from Blackburn. The 31-year-old made seven Blues starts and two sub appearances, scoring once, towards the end of the 2015/16 campaign. Cardiff midfielder Stuart O’Keefe, who is currently on loan with Portsmouth, was an academy schoolboy with Town, while the Bluebirds’ Icelandic midfielder Aron Gunnarsson had a trial with the Blues' youth set-up when also a schoolboy. Emyr Huws joined Town from Cardiff in the summer following his successful loan spell at the end of last season having made only two starts and two sub appearances in one campaign with the Bluebirds. Tom Adeyemi was with the Welshmen between August 2014 and his release last summer but made only 13 starts and 10 sub appearances, scoring one goal. Blues U18s coach Alan Lee joined Town from Cardiff in January 2006 after two and a half years as a player at Ninian Park. Tuesday’s referee is Andy Davies from Hampshire, who has shown 74 yellow cards and three red in 19 games this season. Davies’s last Town game was the 0-0 home draw with QPR on Boxing Day in which he dismissed visitors midfielder Josh Scowen in the closing stages for a second yellow card and booked Knudsen. Davies also took charge of the game between the Blues and Rangers at Loftus Road in September last year when he booked Connolly, Flynn Downes and one home player as well as making an error for Rangers’ opening goal when he failed to spot an obvious handball by Massimo Luongo as the home side ran out 2-1 winners. A month earlier he was the man in the middle for the 2-1 Carabao Cup defeat at Crystal Palace in which he again booked Downes but otherwise kept his cards in his pocket. Before that he took control of the 3-0 loss at Nottingham Forest on the final day of last season in which he cautioned Christophe Berra and Josh Emmanuel. He also refereed the 3-0 home victory over Wigan in April 2017, in which he yellow-carded Ward, Myles Kenlock, Toumani Diagouraga and two Latics. He was in charge of the 2-0 defeat at Huddersfield three months earlier in which he booked Berra, Kevin Bru, Tom Lawrence, Jonathan Douglas, Paul Digby and no home players. Davies has only taken charge of two other Town matches, both of which ended goalless and saw the opposition reduced to 10 men. He officiated in the 0-0 draw with Brighton and Hove Albion in September 2016, in which he showed eight yellow cards, two of them and then a red to Seagulls midfielder Dale Stephens. Chambers, Emmanuel, Douglas and Lawrence were the Town players cautioned. Prior to that, he was the man in the middle for the 0-0 home draw with Huddersfield in October 2015 when he red-carded Terriers striker James Vaughan for a second bookable offence in the final minute. Squad from: Bialkowski, M Crowe, Spence, Iorfa, Kenlock, Chambers (c), Knudsen, Carter-Vickers, Webster, Skuse, Connolly, Hyam, Bru, Gleeson, Ward, Celina, Carayol, Waghorn, Garner, McGoldrick, Sears.
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