Town boss Mick McCarthy says he was impressed with the way defender Adam Webster dealt with having conceded a first-half penalty during Tuesday’s 0-0 draw at Wolves. The 21-year-old, a summer signing from League Two Portsmouth, felled Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, who saw his spotkick saved by Bartosz Bialkowski.
"It was his response to giving away the penalty that impressed me,” McCarthy said. "Giving the penalty away, that’s not the cardinal sin for me because we’ve all done that, any defender has slid in in the box and thought he could win it and made an arse of himself. We’ve all done that, me included.
"But he reacted really well and we played well after that. I said to him at half-time, ‘You want to be shaking Bart’s hand, he’s pulled you right out of a hole’.
"He’s played well and I’m delighted with him, he’s a good player. He’s had to step up a notch, he’s come from League Two and he’s finding it different, harder, quicker, there are better players, as there are bound to be.
"I did it a million years ago, I stepped up a division every year from the old Fourth to the Third to the Second.
"He’s impressed everybody. What impressed me was that his head didn’t drop, he went on player well after the penalty.”
The Town boss added: "He’s a really willing learner, he wants to find out. He’s bound to be, having stepped up two divisions.
"He’s bound to find it different, harder, more difficult, but he’s coping with it and he has got real improvement in him. He’ll get much better.”
McCarthy says Webster and Grant Ward - on whom Town paid out rare fees - are both looking like good signings: "No doubt about those, they’re proving to be good acquisitions.
"They are good players and they’re proving to be good acquisitions. I’m delighted with them, I’m really, really pleased.”
Reflecting on Daryl Murphy’s harshly disallowed goal at Molineux, McCarthy hopes good fortune might shine on the Blues during Sunday’s derby.
"It would be nice if the luck evened itself out this weekend,” he continued. "It might in a few weeks’ time, who knows?
"But I’d settle for playing the way we played at Wolverhampton. You can’t do anything about the result, all you can affect is the performance.
"I think we had a good second half against Barnsley, a really good first half at Brentford, and a not so good second half, and then we had a really good performance for 90-odd minutes at Wolverhampton.
"We were the best team, all the stats back that up. I don’t need the stats to tell me that, I’m honest whether we were good or bad, and I thought we were very good on Tuesday. We deserved to win, but it was still a valuable point.”
Striker Freddie Sears has now gone 30 matches without a goal, the 26-year-old’s last of the 2015/16 campaign, in which he netted six times, came after 16 seconds in the 2-1 win at Fulham on December 15th. But McCarthy believes the former Colchester and West Ham man will soon start hitting the net again regularly.
"He scored loads before and players have their peaks and their troughs, their ups, their downs and he’s always played well in amongst all that,” he added.
"I think he’s been desperate for a goal and perhaps snapped at a few things and hurried a few things, rushed a few things.
"I thought he was excellent on Tuesday night, he was more considered, he kept playing. He wasn’t rushing it, so if he can get back to that level of performance his goals will come because he’s a good player.”
Town as a team are without a goal in three games - Murphy’s disallowed effort aside - but McCarthy isn’t getting too anxious about it.
"There’s no point pressing the panic button because panicking isn’t going to achieve anything, is it?,” he added.
"We all know that Freddie’s got goals in him, Murph’s got goals in him, Pits has got goals in him, we’ve already seen that Grant Ward’s got goals in him, there’s no question about that. We need a contribution from some of the others, and I’ve no doubt we’ll get it.”
The Town manager is pleased that another of his strikers Brett Pitman is likely to be available again on Sunday after a thigh injury, although says the former Bournemouth man is only likely to be a sub.
"He’s trained today for the first time in 10 or 12 days but it’s great to have him back and he’s a really valuable member of the squad,” he said.
"He’s been fine, but I’m not going to stick him playing 90 minutes because there’s every chance if you come back after 10 or 12 days [of aggravating the injury] but he’ll be part of the squad. If he trains on Saturday he’ll be part of the squad.”
McCarthy was full of praise for Jonathan Douglas, who made his first Championship start of the season against Wolves.
"He was excellent,” the Blues boss said. "He certainly adds experience, doesn’t he? He’s a real competitor. He’s been a good player wherever he’s been and a consistent player.
"He came in having missed the first two and played and I thought he was a standout performer on Tuesday.”