McCarthy: We Were on Way to Good Point Saturday, 17th Aug 2013 18:23 Manager Mick McCarthy thought his side were on their way to a good point before debutant Tom Hitchcock’s last-minute winner for QPR at Loftus Road. Asked whether he felt the goal had been on the way after the home side spurned a number of decent chances, most notably Charlie Austin crashing a shot against the bar when he seemed destined to score, McCarthy said: “Did I hell feel it was coming. We just didn’t do enough in that 90th minute.” QPR assistant manager Kevin Bond spoke to the press before McCarthy and said that his club’s management thought it was going to be one of those days where a team does everything but score, but McCarthy thought it was a different story before the break. “I’m sure he didn’t feel it was going to be one of those days when Robert Green pulled off that save from Murph in the first half and we were having chance after chance and it was an even game. Strange that, isn’t it? “I thought it was going to be a really good point until we didn’t defend it in the last minute,” he said. As at Reading the Blues played well but without having anything to show for it, but McCarthy wasn’t in the mood for taking positives from the display: “That’s for Monday morning, ‘Pleased with the performance’. We’ve been beaten, we’ve got diddly squat to show for it. Play well and getting beat isn’t my idea of fun. “Second half, they were better than us, I thought we were even to them certainly in the first half. They’ve got some decent players, haven’t they?” He added: “If you’re looking for yardsticks in terms of performances, both have been pretty good. But if we want to contest the top six, pretty good’s got to be good. “We’ve got to have a point at Reading, we’ve got to have a point here. Then they can come up and talk about whatever they want. “But I don’t think they should have beaten us, although I know we got away with one that hit the crossbar. But it was a good performance.” He says the players were as frustrated as he was about the result: “Bitterly disappointed, as you’d expect them to be. “I said to them to be a team that progresses and does better than being disappointed, it’s got to be 0-0, it’s got to be a point and we haven’t got one, so there’s no point in patting ourselves on the back saying ‘Well played’ because we’ve got diddly to show for it.” Despite some of his players protesting after the goal, McCarthy had no complaints: “It hasn’t gone out. If they’re appealing for offside with Chambo off the pitch. If the ball goes in the net you want people to complain about it because you don’t want to say ‘That’s great, a goal’. “They were looking for it to get disallowed for some reason, I guess, maybe they thought it was offside. Chambo had slipped off the pitch but in general play he wasn’t offside and it was a goal.” The Town boss confirmed that midfielder Cole Skuse was replaced at half-time due to injury: “He’s jarred his Achilles’ and I hope he’ll be OK, I thought he was excellent. I thought Ryan Tunnicliffe did well. But we don’t want to be losing players, we’ve only got 20.” He says Paul Taylor’s replacement 24 minutes after coming on as a sub was tactical: “No injury at all, I put my faith and trust in him to go on thinking he was ready but I don’t think he is. He needs to get games. We’re trying to get him fit with 10 minutes here and 15 minutes there. “He needs some games and I just thought he could have been the difference because he’d got that ability, but we were having to defend and Frank’s bigger than him and can defend corners and freekicks better than him. “I thought he was the right one to take off. Plus Frank’s got good pace and power, he can run in the channels for us.” Asked whether Taylor took the decision well, McCarthy added: “I don’t care. I haven’t explained it to him because it’s not the right time. Straight after the game he’s feeling sore about it, it’s not the time or place to do that. Calm, Monday. “I make my decisions and it was the right decision. It’s not cost us at all, it’s not been that that’s done it. It’s one of those. You’ve just got to accept and try and get him some football.” The Town boss says keeper Dean Gerken should be available again next week: “He’s got a dead leg and I’m hopeful he’ll be OK for next week.” With Harry Redknapp still on crutches after knee surgery, his assistant Kevin Bond took on press duties and said they were delighted with their debutant match-winner Tom Hitchcock: “He’s a goalscorer. He can find the back of the net in training, that’s the thing that he can do. “Charlie Austin had a number of good chances, they seemed to fall to him, so it was getting late in the game, and we thought we’d just try him, have a little look and there he was, he just popped up at the far post.” He added: “We thought it was going to be one of those days. The one that Charlie brought down and smashed against the crossbar. “When he missed that, we thought maybe it wasn’t going to be our day. But we kept going, the lads worked really hard and should have won the game. It looked like we weren’t going to do it, but thankfully in the end, we did.”
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