Boss Mick McCarthy admitted that the Blues’ 1-0 victory at Derby was a smash and grab, claiming he heard sirens at the final whistle.
McCarthy said: "We’ve burgled it. I thought I heard the sirens come at the end and said ‘Shut the door’. I thought the police were coming, there’s a robbery gone on, but heigh-ho.
"That’s the league, scrap it out. It’s not pretty every week, especially at this end of the season, but you need a bit of quality and that’s what Carlos produced.”
McCarthy felt it was a big win, even if his side was fortunate to come out on top: "It’s huge three points.
"Did we deserve them? Not on our performance, they were better than us, but they missed the penalty, or we saved the penalty, whichever way you want to look at it.
"We’ve had to stick at it because we’ve not played particularly well, I thought they did play well, but a bit of quality, a great strike.
"By the way, he’s 34 Carlos, he’s stayed on the pitch, run his socks off and produced that after 93 minutes.
"He scored the winner against Leicester the other week. He needed to chip in more and he’s started to do it.”
While he may not have been impressed with the performance, the Blues boss was one again delighted with his team’s battling qualities as they picked up their fifth clean sheet in a row - and their seventh in eight games - as well as Edwards’s goal: "We worked hard, we fought our corner but we got lucky today. Or was it a good save? The strike at the end wasn’t lucky, it was a great strike.”
He added: "Derby I think have played well, at times. They were certainly the better team in the game. We always managed to fight our corner, but we didn’t play particularly well.
"Being in the position we’re in doesn’t help, but the three points certainly helps. At the end of it, who’s bothered how you play? The history books will just say we came here and we won.”
Rams’ boss Nigel Clough was annoyed that his players let the game slip at the last: "The biggest thing is that we’ve lost a game that we didn’t deserve to. The mentality that we’re trying to instil in those situations, 93 minutes gone, as much as we’d like to win the game you don’t lose it.
"Take your 0-0, take your clean sheet, everyone says ‘Well played, should have won but we didn’t’, but you don’t lose. That’s the biggest disappointment today.”
Clough felt a number of refereeing decisions didn’t go their way, notably when sub Michael Jacobs went to ground under the attentions of Aaron Cresswell on the edge of the area: "I certainly think it was a foul, I’m not sure whether it was in the box as I’ve not seen it back yet.
He also believed Chris Martin’s disallowed goal should have stood: "We know that the goal which was disallowed wasn’t offside, so that’s another major one.
"We didn’t think that was offside. It was a brilliant move and a good goal and we don’t think it was offside.”
The Derby manager also thought referee Eddie Ilderton should have given a freekick for a foul on Kieron Freeman in the passage of play which led to Town’s goal: "Once again we thought it was a blatant foul, nine times out of 10 you get them. It’s usually a culmination of things, a few decisions or whatever, which was the case today.”