Town boss Mick McCarthy says he’s not looking for the FA to take any retrospective action against Sheffield Wednesday skipper Glenn Loovens for the horror challenge which will see David McGoldrick sidelined for a month.
Loovens caught McGoldrick in the groin with a high, studs-up boot in the fourth minute of Wednesday’s 2-2 draw at Portman Road causing a four-inch gash but wasn’t shown a card of either colour by referee Keith Stroud.
The official saw the foul but with Town still in possession waved play on and once the ball had gone out merely spoke to the 34-year-old Dutchman.
"I haven’t spoken to him today, I spoke to him yesterday prior to him having his operation,” McCarthy said of McGoldrick. "He’s had the wound cleaned and stitched up and he’s probably going to be out for a month.”
Given the extent of the injury it was remarkable that McGoldrick was able to continue playing for the rest of the half before being replaced at the break.
"He was being very diligent, doing his job,” the Blues manager reflected. "If he hadn’t have been I’d have taken him off.
"But it’s amazing, the adrenaline, once you get going you can keep going. It’s when you sit down at half-time if you’ve had a bump or a bang or a cut, which he’d got, and it starts to stiffen up.
"He tried to come out for the second half and you’d have seen at half-time if you were there, he couldn’t carry on then.”
Despite feeling Loovens should have been red-carded, McCarthy isn’t after post-match disciplinary action from the FA.
"The rules are it’s been accepted,” he added. "The referee didn’t do anything about it. And it wasn’t an elbow, it wasn’t a violent stamp, it wasn’t anything like that. Glenn Loovens tried to go in for the ball, he was too slow, he missed it and he caught Didzy. I’ve no problem with that at all because that is the game.
"I’m not looking for retrospective punishment, absolutely not, but it should have been dealt with on the day. But it wasn’t.”