Town boss Mick McCarthy says it’s “nailed on” that he’ll get a good reaction from his players following Tuesday’s 3-1 defeat at Cardiff City. The Blues face Huddersfield Town at Portman Road today looking to get back to winning ways.
"I think it would be nailed on that I’ll get a good reaction,” McCarthy said. "I don’t worry about that really.
"We weren’t that bad in the second half at Cardiff, but the two goals we gave away were awful. In terms of how we played, it wasn’t awful.
"I looked at it afterwards. I know I came off and said that it was as bad as we’ve played, but we haven’t played badly this season. So maybe it was as bad as we’ve played but that doesn’t make it awful because we’ve set a high standard.
"The goals were comic cuts, I tell you. If the circus music had been playing it would have summed them up perfectly.”
It perhaps shows how far the Blues have progressed that this season’s two most disappointing results came against sides relegated from the Premier League last season.
"I said at the time that I thought Norwich were better than us on the day but even then we were still competitive right to the end of that game,” McCarthy added. "And the goal was offside. Despite other chances for both of us, it was offside.
"We gave goals away against Cardiff, we just made a real hash of about four or five clearances for one goal.
"And the same for the third goal. It was incredible, and yet we competed with Cardiff all the way through and we were as good as them - and it always sounds daft - except for the goals. But, if they’d have made a hash of their clearances we might have scored as well.”
The Town boss was pleased to hear that striker Daryl Murphy had pointed out his own error in the early stages of Cardiff’s equaliser when speaking to the press on Thursday.
"I’m glad he said it because it’s tiny little details. You think a ball that’s cleared up to him and then ends up being a corner and cleared would have nothing to do with him, but I don’t subscribe to that and he knows that, and that’s what’s lovely about him saying it to you.
"He should have [kept hold of] it and if it sticks then we’re on the attack. But instead it was lost, we were a bit out of shape because of it, they end up with a corner kick and ultimately it ends up in our net.
"And he does accept a portion of the responsibility for it being there, and they all do, they’re good.”
He added: "Murph comes in and picks a piece out that none of you would have picked out. In relation to that goal none of you would even have thought about it.
"That’s the depth that we analyse it to. I brought him in to speak to him, as I did with all the lads, to have a chat about the game and how we played and how they played.
"And he said ‘I shouldn’t have given that ball away. I lost the ball before the corner’. That’s recognising tiny little detail which can only help us get better.”
While Peter Whittingham’s strike was unstoppable, every bit as good as Murphy’s earlier in the game - "They were both great goals” - McCarthy cited other mistakes in the build-up.
"At the end of it, you can’t do much about the shot, it was a bomb, a fabulous strike,” he said.
"Jonny Williams has been naive, he’s tried to nick it up the side of him, so he can run forward.
"Will he do it again? No. I remember things I did as a kid that I didn’t do again because they cost you goals.
"But that’s the way he plays. It’s a learning curve, you stay behind him, you make him go backwards or square, you don’t get turned. But it was a harsh old punishment again, it was a helluva strike!”
The Town boss says there’s no point in moping over defeats: "You rue the fact that you’ve dropped points, always.
"But there’s nothing you can do about it, other than look at it and analyse it and see whether it’s something where there’s a theme running through the team, that we’re getting battered as a team and we’re conceding goals.
"Well, that’s not the case. We’ve conceded two direct headers from corners, that’s not like us.
"We conceded one at Birmingham, which was a mistake, we just didn’t mark properly. Those things we can rectify. I don’t think I’ve got anything to rectify in terms of performances and how we’ve played.
"Even at Cardiff we played well for 45 minutes and didn’t play that badly in the second half, we just shipped goals.”
"We’ve played well this season, we’ve had good results this season. But we’ve just had a bad result, let’s try and get a good one on Saturday.”