Town boss Mick McCarthy was delighted with the performances of Paul Anderson and Paul Taylor during Saturday’s 3-1 home defeat to QPR. Anderson started as one of a front three for the first time for the Blues, while Taylor made only his second league start for Town since his long-term lay-off with a foot injury.
"I thought the two of them were excellent,” McCarthy said. "I thought they played really well and I was delighted with their performances.
"When I make changes, I always want them to play well. What I was disappointed with was that they didn’t make the most of a couple of opportunities when it opened up for them.
"That might be with not playing many games, the confidence comes when you’re playing and you’ve scored a goal. But I thought their performances were really good.”
He felt Anderson adjusted well to the different role: "Ando’s a good player. I’ve been pleased with him.
"When he plays wide in a right or a left role he puts his shift in, but we gave him a bit more licence on Saturday and I thought he did well.”
Overall, McCarthy was left rueing missed chances in the first half and bad defending in the second: "We let them off the hook, we defended abysmally for their first goal but when Niko Kranjcar got his chance, when we let him wriggle out of the corner, which he should never have done, he passes it into the net and it’s a great finish.
"I think people get mistaken by frustration and annoyance [after the game], but I come back and look at it in the cold light of day and it is what it is.
"We played well in the first half, should have scored, should at least have taken a couple of chances to have a shot and we didn’t when we should have done better.
"I didn’t think we played badly in the second half, we just gave them goals. The second goal we didn’t defend particularly well, Deano sticks his hand up and says he should have done better with it.
"The third goal, Tommy comes in and apologises for it. They didn’t make any mistakes that we capitalised on.”