Mick McCarthy hailed his side’s 1-0 victory over Bolton Wanderers as a huge result in the context of the Blues’ relegation battle. Carlos Edwards struck his first goal for two years to see Town to the three points.
McCarthy said: "It’s a huge result, a great three points. They don’t come much more in-form than they do. What was it, eight unbeaten, six wins, two draws?
"To be fair, we’ve done all right against the form teams, it’s when Bristol City, Barnsley and Peterborough come and they’re in the bottom three.
"Whatever that is, I don’t know. If someone can tell me what the recipe for that is, I’ll pack it in, write the book and make zillions.
"But we’ve progressed, I think we’ve got better, we’re certainly hard to beat. I thought we had a really good first half, I thought they had a spell in the second half when they got on top and I had to change the shape to stem the tide a bit, but I think we deserved to win overall over the 90-odd minutes.”
He added: "I think they’re a very good team, Bolton. I thought we had good chances in the first half, but without all that hard work and endeavour and sticking with it, they could have got away from us. We had a spell when we really had to stay with it and they saw it out.”
The Blues boss was aware of the results elsewhere but wasn’t surprised that plenty of the other teams at the bottom had also picked up points: "I’ve seen them, but that always happens.
"I remember when we were vying for promotion with Wolves and Sunderland, you come off after a great result and you look at it and [the other clubs] have all won and you’re still in the same place.
"The next time we all lose. As long as games keep going away and we’re four or five points away from that relegation zone, that’s all we can do. But it’s a fabulous result.”
McCarthy was delighted to see his captain get on the scoresheet and net only Town's fifth league goal from midfield this season: "It’s about time, we’ve been banging his head all week about midfield players contributing. They haven’t so far, so it’s an opportune moment for him.
"I decided to leave him out last week because I needed a bit more of a narrow midfield. Whether he benefits [from that] or not, I don’t know. It benefited us last week as we played well.”
The Town players celebrated long and hard after the game and McCarthy said he was just the same: "I come in here and I’m all nice and calm but I’ve just stuck my head in my office, I’ve got some friends in there, and I said ‘You f-----g beauty!’ and walked out and just left them with it!
"My wife said not to swear in front of your granddaughter, but she is only seven weeks old, so she doesn’t know what’s going on.
"We all come in here and we try to be calm and calculated about it, but, of course, everyone involved loves winning, of course I’m elated.”
Guirane N’Daw missed the game for personal reasons, the details of which McCarthy says he is yet to discover: "Guirane isn’t available for personal reasons, apparently, so he’s not here, I couldn’t pick him.
"I don’t know why. I just got a call from the club secretary this morning saying he wasn’t available. I’ll find out, we’ll see.
"I doubt he’s in a bar p----d — he doesn’t drink, so it’s not that! He’s not driving and in a car crash because he doesn’t drive! I don’t know, we’ll find out.
"I did tell him he could go to Senegal, perhaps he left on Friday instead of Monday!” he joked.
In his absence, the Town manager said he saw little point in adding an academy scholar to the 18: "I’ve got two lads who I couldn’t put on the bench because I’ve got five loans, Browny and Aaron Mclean. It was difficult to have to tell them that but they were fine. But I just haven’t got another sub.
"The referee did point it out, he said ‘You know you’ve only got six on the bench?’. I said, ‘Oh really, I hadn’t noticed that!’.
"I wasn’t going to put [an academy player] on the bench, they were all training. I’d got Byron Lawrence on the bench anyway and there wasn’t really anybody that was going to help. If it’s not going to help, there’s no point in doing it.”
Overall, McCarthy is pleased to be going into the international break after a positive result: "My beer when I have one tonight will taste nice.”
Bolton boss Dougie Freedman felt his side were in control when the Town goal came: "Obviously we’re disappointed with the result. It was a very hard-fought game. For 60 minutes it was a very tough, physical Championship game.
"I felt that from 60 minutes onwards we were dominant in possession, created a few opportunities, we probably could have possibly worked the goalkeeper a little bit more.
"But we looked the team more capable, once we got our passing going, granted it had taken 60 minutes, but we looked like winning the game.
"So, to be mugged at the end with a couple of minutes to go is disappointing, but I’m sure a few people in here know that that’s football and you mustn’t look back.”