Town boss Mick McCarthy was delighted with his whole team’s performance as the Blues beat Preston 1-0 at Portman Road, Grant Ward scoring a 15th minute winning goal.
"I’m delighted with Grant but I’m delighted with the whole team performance, I thought it was excellent,” McCarthy said.
"I thought we played really well in the first half and I thought we had to have a right, royal scrap in the second half and we’ve stood up to it. It was a real blokes' performance.”
"I thought they were really competitive as well. You can’t knock Simon’s team’s performance in the second half.”
He added: "I’m delighted with them all. I thought it was a really good performance. I thought we played some good football in a really tough environment in that game because that was a physical game and we had to stand up to it, as they have, and we’ve managed that. We’ve done well.
"And I think a clean sheet is great in that game. I thought it was really solid from everybody, I thought they all had a good performance.”
The Town boss was pleased with Brett Pitman’s display, the striker having come into the side as a late replacement for Daryl Murphy, who is joining Newcastle.
"He was great, really good, I thought he was excellent,” McCarthy added. "He won his headers, he’s not as quick [as Murphy] but he’s got plenty of savvy and he’s technically very good, Brett, and he brings other people into play.
"He’s a different sort, but played very well, I thought he was excellent. What’s lovely about it is that he’d not been playing and he got a shout as he came in, he’s trained properly, he kept himself right and he’s reacted in the right way.”
The Blues manager was also pleased with Tommy Smith’s performance, the New Zealand international having come back into the team for Adam Webster.
"I knew the sort of game it would be and I think Adam’s been excellent but I thought he might be playing against Jermaine Beckford and I just thought Tommy was the right man for this game today, him and Christophe Berra, and that proved to be right, thankfully,” he said.
McCarthy is pleased to be going into the international break with a victory: "It’s a long two weeks if you get beaten, especially being at home. I thought it was a really good performance. I’m delighted with the 1-0, but I think we were slightly better than that.”
He continued: "It’s horrible if you lose the game and it is a long time, you’re constantly thinking about it, the result, the performance. It’s funny, when you win, you’re not. You don’t think about it, you’ve just won. It’s nice to go into the break.”
McCarthy, who said he will give his players some time off during the break, explained his second-half argument with the fourth official as he sought to make a substitution.
"We decided to take Freddie off because the only way I thought they were ever going to score was an aerial challenge and Reg [Varney] is different class at that, he can defend corners, throw-ins, corners,” he said.
"But Pits was running out of gas, so TC and myself had a discussion and I changed my mind.
"But the fourth official wouldn’t let me change my mind. He said, ‘No, you’ve made your mind up, he’s coming off!’. ‘I can change my mind!’ I said, what happens if somebody gets injured? Would I have had to take the other one off as well?
"To be fair to him, I don’t know how long he’s been doing it, he’s under pressure as well, but I reacted fairly angrily, I said, ‘You’re not taking him off!’. ‘Yes I am, he’s coming off now!’. ‘You can’t, I can change my mind!’. That was why I stood in front of him!
"So I’ve got a warning for my reaction. I did say, how would he expect me to react when he’s actually saying one of my players is coming off?
"I don’t know, he might be better at substitutions than me, maybe he can ring me next time we play and tell me who I should take off.
"It all turned out all right because we won and we can laugh about it. He’s under pressure as well, the kid.”
Preston boss Simon Grayson conceded that his team was second best on the day.
"You know when you come to Portman Road against a Mick McCarthy team you’ve got to compete, you’ve got to battle, and really over the course of the game too many lost the individual battles," he said.
"There wasn’t a great deal in the game but we didn’t do enough off the ball or on the ball to get anything out of the game, which is disappointing because we set good standards last week at QPR and today we slipped below them.”