Boss Mick McCarthy admitted he felt like Town had been beaten after the Blues’ 1-1 draw at Birmingham. The Town manager was delighted with his team’s performance.
"I feel like we’ve been beaten,” he admitted. "I thought we were excellent all round, I thought we deserved to win.
"I’ve been banging on about it not being bad luck when we’ve lost games, against Leeds, for example, it’s been down to four or five tiny little errors.
"But that was bad luck today, we came up a goalkeeper who was in outstanding form and they’ve had a get out of jail free card. I hope we get a slice of luck like that at some stage.”
Birmingham keeper Darren Randolph made a succession of fine saves and McCarthy feels he was a bargain free transfer for the Midlanders: "On that performance, absolutely, very good, terrific.”
The Blues boss was pleased to see Christophe Berra net in his first Town league start, his first goal in English football, having failed to score during his four years with McCarthy’s old club Wolves.
"Berra’s excellent, he’s been terrific, he’s a really good defender and I was delighted to get him in on a free transfer,” the Blues manager said.
"He’ll add to the squad and he’s got a goal, and so he should as well, he’s good and he attacks the ball. I know he never scored one [for me at Wolves], we did mention that yesterday.”
After conceding Chris Burke’s goal, which appeared to deflect off Cole Skuse, McCarthy admits he was concerned that his team might end up falling to a defeat: "There’s always that when you see one spooning over the goalkeeper like that, you’re hoping you’re not going to get another dose of it. Thankfully we didn’t.”
Regarding the late penalty call when David McGoldrick was felled not far outside the area, the Blues boss wasn’t sure: "I don’t know if it was a penalty, no idea, they’re saying it was on the line. They’re all looking at it I wasn’t sure, I didn’t think we were getting one.”
McCarthy says there has still been no interest Aaron Cresswell, but reiterated that he couldn’t confirm that the left-back — one of Town’s star performers at St Andrew’s — would still be here once the transfer window shuts at 11pm on Monday.
"I haven’t said that, I’ve said that if somebody offers us a shedload of money and he wants to go and it’s enough, he’ll go,” he said.
"I’m not saying that [he’s definitely staying] because I’ll make myself look a chump if I say that and the deal’s right for everybody because that’s what football is.
"Of course, we don’t want him to go, we want him to stay. Who knows? But I don’t think there’s anything happening between now and Monday.
"I keep saying that I think he’s the best in the league, that’s there to be argued by everybody else, but that’s how I think of him and I think he can play in the Premier League.”
He added: "We’ve never had any interest, it’s only you guys [the press] who are interested.”
Regarding Josh Carson who has been on trial at Hibernian this week, McCarthy says no deal is likely to go through even if the SPL side want him with the Scottish transfer window closing at 11pm tonight: "They could be in trouble because I don’t think our secretaries will be in tonight doing that one!”