Blues boss Mick McCarthy says his side has made progress despite Saturday’s 2-0 loss at Leeds United. The Town manager thought his team had enough chances to get something out of their visit to Elland Road.
McCarthy, who was in the audience at last night's BBC Sports Personality of the Year, said: "We’ve made progress in terms of the team. We’ve had a really good run, so we have to start again.
"We’ve played well, I think we’ve progressed, although it was really disappointing losing a goal from a corner kick.
"We had enough chances in the game, certainly in the second half, but we’ve progressed, we’ve seen progression and got better.”
Saturday’s results saw the Blues remain in 20th in the Championship, five points of the relegation places having taken 16 points from 27 since McCarthy took charge on November 1st.
Leeds boss Neil Warnock says Jerome Thomas’s flick-of-the-heel goal after Tom Lees’s header from El-Hadji Diouf’s corner to take the lead was something which came from the training field: "I love those goals.
"We did actually work on it because we have been winning headers but we’ve had nobody around the keeper and he ends up catching it and it’s an opportunity. There are four or five goals a season there.”
He was equally pleased with his side’s second goal which came after the Blues had controlled the game for a long spell after the break: "It was a super goal, the combination in midfield, releasing Jerome Thomas and a fabulous finish from Paul Green.
"I was really pleased and Paddy Kenny saved me from biting my nails for five minutes with the save he made with his legs [from Michael Chopra]. I thought that typified everybody putting blocks in.”
Warnock expects his former Barnsley team-mate McCarthy to do well with Town and anticipates his own side having a good season: "He’s a good manager. He knows the Championship inside out. I’m not saying he can’t manage in the Premier League because he can, international level as well.
"But he knows what the Championship is about, he’s a bit like me, the old-school type Championship manager.
"It’s a hard league, if you get yourself organised and you gradually bring your own players in, it’s a league that you can do well at.
"We’re improving all the time. We’re still going to get knock-backs but with a few adjustments in January, we can have a decent second half of the season.”
Meanwhile, today marks the fifth anniversary of Marcus Evans’s takeover of the Blues at an EGM held at the Corn Exchange.