“Home fans shouldn’t boo home players,” believes manager Mick McCarthy. The final whistle confirming Town’s 1-0 defeat to Reading at the weekend was greeted by boos from some areas of the ground, while defender Tommy Smith was amongst those to receive jeers from sections of the Portman Road crowd during the game.
"I’m aware that fans want to see us win, so they do get disappointed as we do, as I do, as players do,” McCarthy said.
"We were playing against a good team with good players, who scored a goal and made it difficult for us and there are times that we can’t go forward because they’re playing all in their half, it’s hard to find a pass so sometimes you have to go backwards or square.
"It’s just really counterproductive to jeer and boo your own players. Just stay to the end and boo me off. I’m cool with that. I’m not cool with that, I get pissed off with it but I can tolerate that more than during the game because it just doesn’t have any positive effect on anybody.
"I don’t know if any of you guys [the media] sit at work and get booed for doing your jobs. It’s not going to help you if you do, let me tell you.
"Whether it’s Tommy or any of us, our lads have been brilliant. They’ve been so good and the last time I got booed off we lost one in 20 after that, so let’s hope it’s another case of that.”
He added: "I don’t think home fans should boo home players, whether I’m at Wolves, Sunderland or Ipswich.
"I’ve been at a lot of clubs, I’ve played at a lot of clubs. It’s never helped the players I’ve played with or managed to perform better yet. I just think everybody should be appreciative.
"We’re appreciative of the support that we get and they should be appreciative of the job that our lads have done, especially somebody like Tommy coming through the academy.”
McCarthy says everyone should be pulling in the same direction as the fourth-placed Blues go into an important last 14 games of the season: "I think I’ve got good players and every week they commit to what I ask them to do and I get the best out of them and they get the best out of me. And we want to continue doing that.
"And you know what? We’ll do it better if we’re all in it together. It’s the way we’ve been all season. Players and fans alike.”
Regarding Saturday’s defeat to the Royals, McCarthy wasn’t particularly critical of his team’s performance: "I’ll settle for playing like that [again tonight].
"There might be some reading this who are screaming because we lost. But it’s not always that you’re rubbish when you lose.
"That’s what I hate about sport at times and I hate about football, that if you lose you’re rubbish. But that’s not quite the case.
"We watched Middlesbrough lose against Leeds and they were far from rubbish. And we were far from rubbish on Saturday. I thought we played well enough.
"We weren’t that bad we should have lost and we weren’t that good that we should have won it because we didn’t score the goal. That’s what it was, it was fine margins, we had enough chances, enough shots, enough balls in the box.
"It was one of those days, unfortunately. But again our lads committed to everything and we were usual selves but without the goal.”