Mick McCarthy admitted that he was hugely impressed with today’s opponents Leicester City when he saw them beat Blackburn 3-0 on Tuesday. He says the Foxes are up there with Watford and Cardiff as one of the division’s top sides.
"I was up there to watch them and they were excellent," he admitted. "I was just asked what I tell the players, do I dress it up for them, but I don’t, I tell them they were excellent. They might as well be wary! I don’t come back and say they’re bang ordinary.
"They slapped Blackburn, it was 3-0 and it could have been more. Kasper Schmeichel made a save after 20 minutes, a really good reaction save but they’d already forced two good saves from Jake Kean and they blazed one over the bar. It could have been more. It could have been like our result up there, 6-0.
"They were excellent, Anthony Knockaert and Ben Marshall, Chris Wood and Harry Kane up front. Danny Drinkwater and Andy King. The six of them were excellent and then they’d got Wes Morgan at the back, who marshalled all of them.
"I thought they looked to me like a Watford or a Cardiff, they are a top team. They’ll push the other two all the way.”
He was also impressed with their strength in depth: "Martyn Waghorn, Paul Gallagher, they were all on the bench.
"There’s a really good squad, but put together for a lot of readies at one stage, when Sven was there.
"They have spent a lot, they’ve got a really good squad, they’ve got a good manager and it’s going to be a really tough game for us. But they did play Tuesday night so that might give us that slight edge.”
Last time the sides met, shortly after McCarthy took over as manager, the Blues were taken apart, but the Yorkshireman says his team have come on a lot in the intervening months: "The 6-0, the game was going nowhere and we gave the most ridiculous penalty away through bad defending and bad decisions.
"And then we went chasing it and got picked off by a really good team. They were good and we were hopeless on the day, and that’s what happens sometimes. If you play against a good team and you’re hopeless, you’re asking for trouble. But we have improved considerably since then.”
The Town boss has noted that Leicester’s away record (won five, drawn four, lost seven) isn’t the division’s most impressive, indeed, it’s not unlike Town’s own (won five, drawn four, lost eight): "I think they’ve lost seven away. I think Leeds beat them at Elland Road, they lost at Peterborough. But they’re a good side.
"The two full-backs rampage forward, Paul Konchesky and Ritchie de Laet, they’re like wingers. Their two wingers come and play on the inside and they rampage forward.
"And Wes Morgan’s been one of the best centre-backs in this league for a long, long time. He’s proving that now and he’s got better and better.”
He says he’s not spoken to the squad specifically about David Nugent — who is rated 50/50 for the game due to a neck injury — and his remarkable scoring record against Town and on Suffolk soil.
Nugent has scored in each of his previous matches at Portman Road, a record of seven goals in six games for the Foxes, Preston, Portsmouth and the England U21s.
At all venues, the 27-year-old, a target of former Blues bosses Jim Magilton and Paul Jewell, has netted 11 in 11 against Town.
"I haven’t but somebody mentioned it the other day,” he said. "He’s injured but I’d imagine he’ll be breaking his nuts to get fit if he’s scored 11 in 11 against us.
"If we defend like we did up there, he’ll probably improve on that record whether he’s hobbling on one leg or not.”
But despite feeling that Leicester could well be one of the challengers right at the top of the division come May 4th, McCarthy isn’t giving up, pointing to the Championship’s continuing topsy-turvy nature: "Huddersfield weren’t any great shakes against us, although apparently they were the ones trying to play football, then they went and beat Burnley.
"The league, as I keep saying every time I come in here, it’s just bonkers and you wouldn’t want to try and make money from it if you were a betting man, that’s for sure, because there are upsets every week.
"I just said they were excellent, but I’m not thinking for one minute that we can’t beat them.”