Boss Mick McCarthy says nothing means more to goalscorers like Michael Chopra than hitting the net. The Blues frontman came off the bench to score Town’s winner against Blackpool on Saturday and may have won himself a start in tonight’s home game against his former loan club Watford.
Asked what the goal will have meant to Chopra, McCarthy said: "It means he might get another game!
"I think he’s a goalscorer and it means everything to them, that’s what they want to do. I don’t think anything else other than scoring matters to goalscorers like him. If they don’t play well but score they’ll be all right.
"I often think sometimes even when the team don’t win but the goalscorer scores they’re kind of sad they’ve lost but still have that inner glow because they’ve scored themselves. That’s what makes them such predators, and that’s what he is. So, he’s delighted with it, of course he is.”
Chopra’s off-field issues have been well-documented but McCarthy says they haven’t hit his form and that he doesn't speak to him about them: "I don’t ask him, I don’t get involved in that.
"If he trains OK and he gets on with it, fine. Of course, I’m aware of it and if it affects his football that’s different, but it hasn’t.”
A number of Championship clubs, including, we understand, Hull City, were interested in taking Chopra on loan and McCarthy is glad he made it clear the 29-year-old wouldn’t be allowed to move on: "It was me that made the decision that he wasn’t going to go out on loan because with the players we had fit at the time we only had about 15.
"So, I’m not going to let any of my own players go out because I can’t take any more loans really. Well, I can, but I’d have to leave one of the loans I’ve got off the bench. "I need my own contracted players, and I know Chops has got a goal in him. That was why I put him on on Saturday and he repaid me with it. It was good. "It was my decision, it wasn’t that he could have gone and he turned it down, I turned it down, I wouldn’t let him go.” Chopra, who scored the last-minute winner when Town beat the Hornets 1-0 at Vicarage Road (see top photo), has started only two games for McCarthy since he took over as manager but the Blues boss says he could be more involved if he continues his form from Saturday: "There’s every chance if you go on and play like that. "It wasn’t just his goal, it was his performance. I thought he worked really hard, he defended from the front, I thought his all-round performance was good on Saturday.”
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