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McCarthy: No Regrets - Ipswich Town News

Manager Mick McCarthy had no regrets about making six changes to his side after the Blues exited the Capital One Cup at the first round stage having lost 2-0 at Stevenage.

The Blues boss felt his side were OK before the break: "In the first half I thought it was all right, to be honest with you. It was difficult, but we expected it to be a difficult game.

"In the second half we gave a freekick away and then a penalty and the lads aren’t too happy about it, but no one ever is. Until I see it I won’t know.

"Then I changed the team and I put the two lads [McGoldrick and Murphy] on and we had a bit of a resurgence and then we gave a goal away, which killed us off.

Despite the defeat, he didn’t feel he’d made a mistake in making six changes: "None whatsoever. The two centre-forwards had to play, I doubt I could play David McGoldrick and Daryl Murphy every week at that intensity, the other two have to play.

"Freddie’s got to play, my left-back was injured, I couldn’t do anything about that, so there weren’t that many.

"Dean Gerken’s not had a great deal to do, what he’s done, he’s done OK and he’s picked the ball out of the net twice. No regrets at all, they’re first team players.”

There was more bad news for McCarthy with Jay Tabb going off injured in the first half: "Tabby’s hurt his shoulder, he thinks he might have got away with it, I hope that’s the case.

"We’ll see, I don’t know. He’s got it strapped up and in a sling at the moment. I’m hoping he’ll be OK.”

McCarthy had hoped for a cup run: "I am disappointed, I wanted to win the game, I said yesterday I didn’t want to come here and be beaten, I never do. But we are out of it and I am disappointed about losing a game.

"But it’s more disappointing that we’ve had a great crowd turn up again and we’ve been beaten twice away from home. It was disappointing that we didn’t get a goal because we had enough chances to score.”

The Blues boss gave credit to the League One side: "They’ve played well, I can’t knock them, they’ve played well have Stevenage and probably overall they deserved it.”

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