Mick McCarthy says he’s yet to make any decision on the remaining members of Paul Jewell’s coaching staff. Assistant manager Chris Hutchings left the club by mutual consent earlier today with Terry Connor taking on his role, but no further changes have as yet been made. Still at the club from the Jewell era are coaches Mark Kennedy, who played for McCarthy with Millwall and the Republic of Ireland, Sean McCarthy, fitness coach Andy Liddell, U18s coach Russell Osman and fitness consultant Steve Williams.
McCarthy says their situations have not yet been discussed: "As I said when I went in to Wolves and anywhere else I’ve been, I’ll go in and see what is there and we’ll see what we do.
"That’s not high on my agenda at the moment. Getting a result on Saturday is. I do know Mark, I know Sean and I know Andy as well, so I know most of them that are in there.”
McCarthy, who plans to get a house in the area as he has done at his other clubs, was linked with Nottingham Forest in the summer and confirmed that there had been interested parties between his Wolves sacking in February and him joining the Blues this week: "I’ve spoken to people in that time.”
However, he denied that he had been contacted about a return to his old job with Ireland: "I think that was so unfair on Giovanni Trapattoni because they had a victory, however it was achieved, against Kazakhstan, and then they got spanked by Germany 6-1, which really was a doing of epic proportions. But then Sweden were 4-0 down to them, although I know it ended four-all.
"It was a bit like the group in Euros, I never fancied them to get through that, and I never fancied them to beat Germany, but they beat the two teams that they should, and then my name is getting linked with them.
"There were all sorts of stories that I’ve been tapped up and I’ve spoken to them, but it was barefaced lies. Nothing in it at all.”