Town boss Mick McCarthy was delighted with his side’s “great” performance during Wednesday’ night’s 2-2 draw but was frustrated by their “naivety” as they conceded Sheffield Wednesday’s injury-time equaliser and seething that Glenn Loovens wasn’t red-carded for the fourth-minute challenge on David McGoldrick, which has left the Blues striker needing surgery tomorrow.
Reflecting on his team’s display said:"I thought we were different class tonight, I thought we were great, we played really well. It was a really positive performance, I’m delighted with the way we played.
"Obviously annoyed at not taking the three points and our naivety with two minutes to go. But I can forgive them that if they play like that every week and we’ll win more games than we lose.
"It was a bit of quality from them, but we’ve had about seven little mistakes in all of that. The first one should just have been kicked out for a throw-in, flick it up, put it in the stand, do what you want, just don’t lose it and don’t let them break on us.
"And when they did there were little mistakes along the line. That’s how it happens. I guess they’ll look at the goals we scored and think they made mistakes as well.”
Despite the result, McCarthy’s post-match chat to his players was positive: "My team-talk to them [was] and [I don’t want] anybody coming in with a big sad face tomorrow thinking they’re the only one who is upset about it.
"We played well and we should take the positives out of it. Yes, you may be disappointed. Well, put it in your bag, take it to Villa and play like that again and we’ll win more games than we’ll lose.
"The overall performance was really good. It’s still rankles when you’ve played like that and you’ve conceded in the last minute, but I guess Leonid Slutsky on Saturday when we scored after 88 minutes was feeling exactly the same. What goes around comes around, I guess.”
Regarding McGoldrick’s injury, he added: "He’s got a gash, I’ve seen a picture of it, it’s probably as long as my finger and probably as deep.
Poor Didz has just been castrated by Glen Loovens. #itfc pic.twitter.com/gMtsBHyx3f
— George Solomon (@GeorgeSolomon) November 22, 2017
"I think they’re saying he’s going to need surgery tomorrow, I believe. And it’s an appalling challenge.
"He didn’t mean it, but then if I’m sat here with a gun in my pocket and shoot one of you and I killed you, I wouldn’t have meant it because I was just standing up. Actually I might have meant it with a couple of you!
"But I’d still be punished for it. I’ve just been in to see [referee] Keith [Stroud] and I’m the last person to want people to get yellow cards and red cards, but I thought it was bad and I’ve just seen it again.
"I went down to speak to Sky and I hadn’t seen it and I wished I had because they asked me. I didn’t fluff around, I thought it was a bad challenge. It’s a red card, it’s a dreadful challenge and it should have been punished as such.
"What do you lads think? Penalty? Apart from having two of Didzy’s testicles on his boot!
"But let me just clear something up, don’t any one of you think about putting that that has had an effect on the result, the performance or how the game has ended because it hasn’t.
"We played better than them with 11 men, we should have beaten them with 11 men. It’s our naivety that’s cost us at the end.
"But if that’s not at least a booking. He said he hadn’t got a good view of it. Well I had an unbelievable view of it and so had one of his linesmen. I’d love to call them assistants if they assist. And the fourth official was stood next to me, so he had a great view of it.
"I said [to the referee], it was the most appalling challenge, he didn’t mean to kick him there but he did. It’s a non-decision, so I can’t call it an awful decision, can I?”
McGoldrick, who drove himself to hospital having been substituted at half-time, is likely to be out for a number of weeks.
Wednesday manager Carlos Carvalhal felt his team made too many uncharacteristic errors but thought they would have gone on to win had they not conceded Town’s second goal.
"It was a game where we were penalised because we made some mistakes that we usually don’t do and this was our problem,” he said. "We didn’t give up which was a positive of the game.
"At the end we achieved one goal - it is a correct score. They had opportunities, we had opportunities also but I must tell you we are disappointed because the way we moved the things and played in the second half.
"We can’t [concede] that second goal because if we don’t [concede] that second goal I believe we will win the game. That’s why we are disappointed.”