Town boss Mick McCarthy says the Blues can’t afford to be as open as they were as they beat Burton Albion 2-0 at Portman Road on Tuesday when they take on Championship leaders Newcastle United at St James’ Park this afternoon (KO 3pm).
The Blues ended their five-game goalless and winless run after coming out on top in an unusually open Championship game against the Brewers, but McCarthy won’t be taking the same toe-to-toe approach against the Magpies.
"If Newcastle get the chances that Burton had we’d have been picking the ball out of the net, there’s no doubt about that,” the Town boss admitted.
"So, no we won’t be, but I chose to do that [against Burton] because I thought our front four would be better than their back four, and as it turned out I was right, thankfully.
"And I thought our back six would cope with their front six, how they try to play. I know that’s a bit simplistic but that is effectively what happened in the game.
"We scored and our full-back’s run on Lloyd Dyer and he’s the wing-back and the next goal we scored John Brayford was on the halfway line, that’s their right wing-back.
"So it was an open game, it was a wide open game and there were chances at both ends. I’m not so sure it’ll be that open on Saturday.”
McCarthy says those fans calling for a return to 4-4-2 now that Freddie Sears has ended his long goal drought will be disappointed, but the Blues boss says his recently preferred 4-3-3 system isn’t necessarily defensive.
"I know fans want to see exciting, attacking football and we try and play that with 4-3-3,” he added.
"Go and tell the Dutch, by the way, go and speak to the Dutch who play 4-3-3 all the time and ask if they play attacking, exciting football.
"I watched Liverpool playing 4-3-3 and nobody says anything, but they’ve got all their attacking players.
"It’s very rare that teams play 4-4-2 and Newcastle won’t. These will have one up front and one dropped in, whether it’s Mohamed Diame or somebody else.
"It would be a little bit rich to expect us to go up there and be battering them playing 4-4-2, wouldn’t it? Even for the most optimistic supporter.
"And anyway I’m not into what supporters think, I’m into getting results and we went up to Blackburn and we were playing 4-4-2 and we should have won the game.
"I changed it on Tuesday night and we won the game, four points from two games, that’s my job, not listening to everybody else’s opinion because if I do I’ll end up making a camel instead of a horse.”
McCarthy confirmed that Jonathan Douglas will return to the midfield having been left out against the Brewers.
"Dougie’s playing, the experience of Dougie will help, and he’s been terrific,” the Town boss continued.
"He’d been having treatment on his knee, I told him it wasn’t for that reason, I wanted to change the team for the home game but it did give him a chance because he’d run some miles had Dougie, more than everybody every week.
"And we’ll need that on Saturday. And we’ll need a few others who can do that as well.”