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McCarthy: We Need to Be More Ruthless - Ipswich Town News

Town boss Mick McCarthy said the Blues need to be more ruthless at both ends of the field after their 2-0 defeat at Wigan Athletic.

Latics keeper Scott Carson was on top form and made a number of good stops, but McCarthy says his side should have taken at least some of the numerous chances they created.

"We’ve got to score them, we’ve got to be ruthless and we weren’t,” he said. "There were good saves, good blocks, but we should have scored.”

The Blues manager was disappointed with the first Wigan goal: "We let them off the hook in the first half with the goal.

"It was a good header from Ryan Shotton but he shouldn’t get in, we should have marked him better and we let them off the hook with the chances that we missed. It sounds like a broken record.”

McCarthy had no complaints about Nick Powell’s second goal despite keeper Dean Gerken’s protests: "He’s made a rick, he’s trying to keep it in and get the ball up the pitch.

"It’s easy afterwards, he knows he should have headed it and we maybe could have got round and helped him better but he didn’t and it ended up in the net and it kills us off. There were still two or three minutes left. He made a rick, but we can’t do anything about it now.”

The Town boss, who confirmed that Gerken will start against Brighton next week despite his error, felt the match was similar to the games against the two other sides relegated from the Premier League at the end of last season: "We’ve got to be more clinical, ruthless, whatever word you want to put in. We had enough opportunities.

"We’ve got the points that we have and we are where we are because we’ve not completed the task that we should have done, even at Reading, at QPR and here today, all the sides which have come down.

"Everybody says we’ve had a hard start but that’s rubbish because we’ve been better or equal for most parts of the games and we come away losers. It’s not good enough.

"You get what you earn, don’t you?” he added. "You’ve got to put the ball in the net, if we’d have done it today we’d have earnt something, but we didn’t.”

The Blues boss said there was no finger-pointing in the dressing room afterwards: "I wouldn’t be singling people out for missing chances because they get in there and they’ve got to be in there for the opposition to block them or save them. But the two goals we’ve given away were just mistakes and it’s costing us at the moment.”

One positive for McCarthy was striker Paul Taylor’s performance from the bench: "I wanted to get him on the pitch, I thought he might have been the Johnny on the spot and, to be fair, I thought he did well. I was pleased with him. There’s a goal in him definitely.”

The former Peterborough man replaced winger Paul Anderson, who the Town boss said was suffering from the niggle which saw him miss the Yeovil game: "He had ice on his groin. I thought he did well, Ando, he had a couple of chances as well.

"It was to get some fresh legs on as much as anything, he’s missed a bit of training with his injury.”

Wigan boss Owen Coyle said he was expecting a tough match against the Blues: "Coming into the game today we always knew it was going to be difficult.

"I felt we were playing against a very good side in the shape of Ipswich, I said that prior to the game.

"They were a team that had won two successive games in the Championship and looking to push on into the top part of the league, while we were coming off a tough European game on Thursday night.

"The players had worked their socks off to get a terrific point and put in a terrific performance in the club’s European debut.”

Despite seven of his XI having started that game, Coyle was delighted with their performance: "They were an absolute credit to themselves. I think we’ve got to give credit to Ipswich and accept that Scott Carson made a couple of good saves in the first half.

"But we worked on the set plays and scored a good goal and had one or two good chances ourselves.

"Coming in at 1-0 at half-time I said to them that we had to be more effective on the ball and more creative.

"But knowing the heart and courage and spirit they’ve got for the fight, that was never going to be a problem.

"We stood up to everything, Carson made a save from Berra and one other in the second half, but we had numerous opportunities to get that second goal.”

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