Boss Mick McCarthy doesn’t want midfielder Luke Hyam to temper his game, despite his challenge having led to Brentford winger Alan Judge breaking his leg during last Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to the Bees at Portman Road.
McCarthy says Hyam has been back to his usual self at training: "Luke’s been Luke. I don’t sit down and get a psychologist in for him, Luke is just what he is.
"He’s a really combative player and I really felt sorry for him that the first tackle, he’s won the ball. I’m not convinced that needs to be a booking if you win the ball.
"And then he was targeted by their players and the tackle which ultimately cost him and he reacted to was a nasty tackle on him.
"I thought he’d got his head round it, I thought he’d really tempered his style and he was coming off at half-time.
"Maybe I should have bitten the bullet earlier, but I was making other changes as well, so I didn’t want to do it then and I thought he would have got to half-time, but sadly for him and all of us, he just reacted badly to a bad tackle. But he’s fine.”
He added: "He’s gone and trained, and I just said to him this morning that all my nine sendings off were all miscarriages of justice.
"In fact I saw in one of the papers that and I had a flashback because there was a picture with an Everton player going off and the caption was ‘McCarthy takes an early bath’. I had a real flashback, I smiled to myself when I saw that.”
McCarthy says the 24-year-old can’t afford to lose his edge: "I’d shouted onto him, ‘Don’t let what’s happened affect us more than it’s affected them’ and actually it did because in the end we ended up getting Luke sent off.
"Had it been for another tackle I would have thought ‘Well, so be it’ but he won the ball. And he really tempered his game, I could see that so he wasn’t as effective.
"I was going to make other subs at half-time and I didn’t want to be taking him off then, I thought if he could get to half-time we’d do it then, but sadly he didn’t. I don’t want to temper his game, but if he does, he won’t be the same player.”
McCarthy says he has spoken to Judge: "We’re all feeling really sick about losing but the real tragedy for me is that Alan Judge has broken his leg in a terrible accident and that’s just what it was.
"There’s a kid who was probably going to the European Championships, probably moving in the summer and he’s now going to be out for seven months, so I feel desperately sad for him.
"I’ve spoken to him and, fair play to him, he said, ‘Mick, it’s football’. I loved his philosophical thought process on it.”
He added: "I don’t know whether Luke has spoken to him but I know he has messaged him.”
Keeper Bartosz Bialkowski also defended his team-mate: "He was down because he obviously didn’t mean to hurt Alan Judge. He is not that kind of player. He likes to tackle, but in a good way, and he is a really nice guy.
"He has been down but we are all behind him, the manager is behind him, so he will be fine."
Meanwhile, manager McCarthy reiterated that Town have taken up the options for a further season in Hyam and defender Tommy Smith’s contracts with new deals to be talked about further in the summer.
"We’ll certainly be taking their options for another year and we’ll let the season get out the way and we’ll discuss them afterwards. They are contracted for another season anyway.”