Manager Mick McCarthy felt Town’s 1-0 victory over Bolton Wanderers “epitomised” his “belligerent, stubborn, hard-working” side. David McGoldrick’s 55th minute penalty was the difference between the teams.
"I like them when I’m sat in here and we’ve won, I’m not so sure I like them when stood out there and I’m jumping up and down like a jack in the box,” McCarthy said of the game afterwards.
"I think it epitomises us. We’re not great, we’re not a silky football team, we’re a belligerent, stubborn, hard-working bunch with a really good team spirit and then, yes, we can play.
"I think David McGoldrick epitomised what we’re about when he ran back 50 yards and tackled Chris Eagles and his job is supposedly to stick the ball in the net.
"They work for each other and work for me and TC and the club. They’re great, but we’re not a silky, wonderful football team by any stretch of the imagination.”
He told his players he was disappointed with their first half display at the break: "I didn’t think from one to 11, or whatever numbers we are, they had done enough in the game.
"Gerks made a good save but some of his kicks weren’t the best, it was 20 minutes before our centre-halves won our first header. I don’t think the front three didn’t really do anything.
"I thought the midfield three were all right. I thought Skusey had done OK and I thought Hunty and Tabby were different class, considering they’re both supposed to be wide lefties.
"We hadn’t done enough in the game. I just said to them ‘you’ll have to step it up lads, we’re nowhere near’. And I think we got the goal out of being a little bit more in their faces and hard-working. We kept the ball in, challenged for it and we got a penalty from it.”
Despite having had his last two spot-kicks saved, McCarthy says there was never any question that McGoldrick would take the penalty.
"It was never in any doubt,” he said. "Murph keeps teasing him saying ‘you’re off them, lad!’, but he’s only missed one. I know he didn’t score straight away [against Preston] but he scored nevertheless, so he’s only missed one penalty.
"Fantastic, 15 goals is a really good haul for him. He’s been our talisman in games with his bit of quality or goals, whether a penalty or in free play. He’s been excellent.”
With the other sides around Town winning, the Blues boss says the result takes on greater importance: "It does, when you see where we are, we’re still in seventh.
"We were watching the Burnley game before and somebody said what are the other [games]? But there’s only one result which counts, ours.
"Everybody else can do whatever they want, if we don’t win it doesn’t really matter. Of course it adds a bit more significance, if we’d lost we’d be down the pecking order somewhat.”
Having lost three games in a row, Town have claimed seven points from their last three matches with McCarthy particularly pleased with the home win a week ago: "Reading beat Millwall 3-0 today, so their last four games have been a 7-1 win, 5-1 and 3-0 and in between that 0-2 here. So that is a good team. We knew that when we played them.
"And then we go up to Leeds, and they won 5-1 today, which really pisses me off because of all the uproar about Brian McDermott being sacked, but I’m not going to get into that.
"Going there is not an easy place to go and play, I’m not bothered with the circumstances. That’s a good point and we’ve had to grind one out today. We’ve just ground a really good three points out today.”
McCarthy switched his midfielders around on a number of occasions during the game, with Frazer Richardson making his debut in an unfamiliar role late on, and says he did so in order to counter Bolton’s changes of tactics.
He said: "I’d let Woody do Darren Pratley, that was Skusey’s job [before he went off], then they changed it around and put Mark Davies in there, so I wasn’t going to let Woody mark Mark Davies because he’d just run away from him, so I changed Tabby and put him on him.
"The he put Trotter on and I didn’t want Tabby marking Trotter, although the first header he went and beat him, to be fair, and Woody was running out of gas so it was ideal. I said to Frazer before and he said ‘no problem, I’ll go and play there’. He’s a good character.”
Regarding Cole Skuse, who was subbed in the first half with a head injury, McCarthy said he was fine after the game: "He’s all right, I’ve just been in to see him, he got a nasty knock on his head. He’s just stunned.”
Bolton boss Dougie Freedman thought his side were on top before the break: "Very disappointing result today. We felt that in the first 45 minutes - and it happens regularly to us - we were by far the better side.
"We competed very well, created two or three opportunities which you’d like to try and take and then a rush of blood in the second half seems to be the difference in the game because there wasn’t a lot in it. These small moments are hurting us badly right now.”
He added: "No complaints about the penalty at all. It’s a rush of blood to the head. Andy Lonergan has been fantastic for us, absolutely no blame, I don’t have a blame culture at the football club.”