Mick McCarthy says Northern Ireland international midfielder Josh Carson needs to go out on loan to play some games. The 19-year-old hasn’t featured since the 3-0 Sheffield Wednesday defeat in late October, the match prior to McCarthy taking over as boss.
The Blues manager says that currently there are no members of his squad on the verge of moving on but revealed that there are clubs interested in Carson: "There’s nothing imminent. A few would like to have Josh Carson on loan and that would be something I would be open to.
"I think he needs to go and play some football. He’s just a young lad learning his trade and travelling with us and training with us is not good enough for him, he needs to play. So that might happen.”
Spells out on loan in the lower leagues away from the relative comforts of Town are often viewed as character building for young players, but McCarthy says Carson shows a good attitude to the game in any case: "I don’t think there’s any problem with Josh [on that front], he’s a smashing young kid, he just needs to play football.
"I know he was in and around the first team, I think he played in the game before I took over. But he hasn’t played since and he’s been in the U21 games and he played the game at Felixstowe, but that’s not enough for him. He’s got to be progressing more and playing in somebody’s first team.”
Meanwhile, McCarthy says he wants to see more from Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, who has missed out on a place on the bench in the last two games.
"The situation is that I put Big Frank [Nouble] on the bench, I wanted more out of Jay Emmanuel-Thomas,” he said. "If I get it, then he’ll be involved. If I don’t, then he won’t, like everybody else.
"I think he can do better. We all keep saying that he’s got really good ability and he could do this or he could do that. I’ve got to see it.
McCarthy says he’s pleased with recent recruit Tyrone Mings’s progress since he came to the club and revealed that the 19-year-old former Chippenham Town man averted a potentially embarrassing error prior to the Aston Villa FA Cup tie: "Tyrone’s fine. He’s still learning his trade but he’s been around the first team and if I had a problem with Cressy then I’d give him a game.
"I’m so glad that we’ve got a bright, educated young man that said ‘By the way gaffer, I’m cup-tied from playing for Yate Town back in August’. That could have been embarrassing, that!”