Blues boss Mick McCarthy was delighted with his side’s 1-0 victory over Leicester but admitted that he was relieved that it was over. Leicester manager Nigel Pearson was unhappy with a couple of off the ball incidents involving his skipper Wes Morgan, who subsequently made an error for the vital goal.
McCarthy said: "I’m delighted and relieved and glad it’s over, I have to be honest. It was a real well-organised, gutsy performance. We defended well. All the things that [Foxes assistant manager] Craig Shakespeare said in his interview on Thursday, that you know what to expect from a Mick McCarthy team.
"Someone asked me whether I took it as a compliment and I do when they defend and work as hard as they did today. It was good.
"We weren’t the best team by any stretch of the imagination, but we’ve got a clean sheet and when it was required we had that bit of composure, that bit of brilliance from David McGoldrick to get the winner.”
Pearson admitted his team weren’t at their best but was unhappy with a couple of incidents: "We did have some great chances but unfortunately we weren’t at our best today.
"But I think we still had enough chances to get something out of the game. But, of course, there were other incidents which had an effect on the result.”
Asked whether Morgan should have kept his composure, he added: "Do you not think that the incidents off the ball contributed to that?
"You can write whatever you want,” he continued. "But as far as I’m concerned my captain has been fantastic for us this year and all you have to do is have a look at the two incidents.
"I’m not a sour grapes person because I think Mick’s doing a really good job here and I don’t want it to turn into me looking for excuses, but unfortunately today there were a couple of very unsavoury incidents off the ball which have possibly contributed to what’s happened.
"The officials have a difficult job, but I’ve seen his position and I think it’s appropriate for people to ask the right questions.
"I’m not going to come in here and make excuses, but I think it could have contributed to what happened afterwards.”
Pearson thought his skipper was caught by Blues sub Murphy shortly after he came on at a throw-in: "He got booked for complaining about somebody elbowing him in the face. I think everyone can see that.
"And Chopra kicked him off the ball just prior to that. It’s unfortunate that I’m talking about things like that rather than football. But that’s life.
"The officials have got their job to do and all I’ll say is that I’ve seen the incidents again and it’s unfortunate that they weren’t dealt with and I can understand Wes feeling a bit hard done to about that.
"All in all it was a bit of a scrappy game, we’ve had our chances, we haven’t taken them and it’s a disappointing result for us.”
McCarthy believes that Morgan had been rattled prior to the Murphy incident: "First and foremost I think he blocked Chopra, ran across in front of him and there was a tangle of legs. Whether Chops caught him or not, I don’t know, but that upset the applecart a bit.
"I think Chops jumped with his arm up at a corner kick and didn’t make contact. But that would be the last of my worries if I was playing against Chops, I’d be kicking the sh--- out of him all over the place. I’d be worried about him putting the ball in the net.
"That all got a little bit fractious and I thought there were lots of things, I thought there were some pushes in our box at the end and I’m screaming for fouls, they’re screaming for fouls, there were words between us, only just the usual, all that intellectual intelligent stuff that goes on in the dug-out.”
A central defender in his playing days, McCarthy believes those sorts of situations come with the territory: "I think the reality is as a centre-half you have to keep your composure because that’s what people do.
"As a centre-half I went out with the sole intention of upsetting the two f---ers I was playing against and anyone else that came anywhere near me.
"And when you’re playing against Mick Harford and Tony Cunningham and people like that, their sole intention is to smash me across the nose and upset me. And it’s the one that gets upset less and whoever made the mistake at the end of the game, and he did.
"So, while all that’s going on, boot it out, have a clean sheet. I’ve no sympathy with Nigel and I’ve no sympathy with the player because it ends up in the back of the net.
"If it was my centre-half I’d be saying so and he probably will be, although he’ll come in here and say something different. If it was Tommy Smith or Chambo I’d say ‘You let him upset you, you let that little s--- upset you and it’s cost us the game’. And that is the case. That is what happened.”
McCarthy had praise for sub Murphy, who created the goal for McGoldrick: "Murph’s been great. He’s been unlucky because I’ve had him in the team, out of the team and he’s remained focused and trained well and positive with his attitude. It’s nice for him.”
The Blues boss was pleased with his goalscorer, who is unavailable for Tuesday’s game at his parent side Nottingham Forest: "It was a lovely finish. I took Chops off and left David on as he can’t play on Tuesday night and I need Chops to go again on Tuesday night.
"I think he’s been excellent, he’s played really well. There, you’ve got one striker for Tuesday, Michael Chopra, he’ll be playing.”
Overall, The Town manager thought it had been a feisty encounter: "We started well, we got the crowd going, it was quite an open game. The pitch wasn’t the best but there were good challenges, good blocks, good tackles, it was a good aggressive game.
"You’d expect that from Mick McCarthy and Nigel Pearson, to be fair, because he was no shrinking violet himself, let me tell you. He wouldn’t have let Chopra upset him.”