Boss Mick McCarthy says this season’s Championship is shaping up to be just as close as last year’s. The Blues are currently in 13th, an equal distance from the play-offs and the relegation zone.

“What are we, six points off the top six and six off the bottom three?” he said. “Here we go again, same as last season. It’s very, very tight, concertinaed up.

“Every point is a prisoner, so sometimes you have to walk away and say ‘You know what, we didn’t play as well as we can, the opposition played well, but we didn’t get beaten’. There’s a lot to be said for that.”

That was how he felt about last week’s 1-1 home draw with Barnsley: “Friday’s night’s game was a proper Championship game which we edged in the first half, it was a scrap.

“In the second half, they had a chance, Dean made a great save, they got a corner and they took the initiative in the game.

“They got a bit of momentum in the game and I think we found it hard to wrest that momentum from them, to be honest.

“And then we conceded a goal which I don’t think we should have. They played well, it’s always easy to say that it’s us that hadn’t played well, how about complimenting the opposition sometimes for how they played.

“I thought they took the game to us and penned us in. There’s not a lot between any of us in the league.”

McCarthy says he had no problem with the way some supporters reacted to the result: “I thought the fans were great. I had no problem with the boos at the end. We drew at home, I felt like we’d lost on Friday night, Saturday.

“That’s the problem, it gets built up that you’re going to win, they’ve lost every game away from home. It’s not going to happen all the season long.

“If I’d have been in their dressing room I’d have been saying ‘It can’t continue, we’ve been playing OK, we’re bound to get something’.

That’s just what happened. And I don’t think Barnsley are a bad team and I think they’ve got a decent squad of players.”

Despite not having been overly impressed with his side’s displays in the last two games, he feels they've done well enough for the most part but ought to be further up the table: “We’ve done OK, I think we should be better and we could have been better.”

Photo: Action Images

bluefeast added 08:12 - Nov 8 Ipswich 5 nil up and on 90 mins Chopra takes a penalty for Blackpool hits the post and we wave 10 pound notes at him. My perfect Saturday.
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kerryblue747 added 08:33 - Nov 8 bluefeast could not have put it better ,make my week .
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Letchworth_Blue added 08:36 - Nov 8 Hope so. It's a long trec to see a dismal performance like the last 2!
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murraybrunning added 08:42 - Nov 8 You have to make the most of the weekend @Blackpool away, either celebrating or drowning sorrows!!!!! Love to bump in to Chops in Flares, special request for money money money by abba.......... Fancy us for a point.
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Surco72 added 09:19 - Nov 8 bluefeast ..the reality Is that we will be holding on for a nil nil draw Chopra will come on and score the winner before dancing in front of us . I hope not ,but it is Town we are talking about
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Paulc added 09:46 - Nov 8 What a miserable sod you are Surco72, not saying you're wrong mind you.
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kalypso added 10:20 - Nov 8 “What are we, sixteen points off the top and six off the bottom?”
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TR11BLU added 10:42 - Nov 8 “What are we, six points off the top six and six off the bottom three?” I dont think this will be the case come the end of this month. With some very tricky fixtures and how we have been playing, I predict bottom three by the time Blackburn (H)....and I'm an optimist! I really hope I'm wrong.
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Guthrum added 10:51 - Nov 8 kalypso - Ignoring the fact that we're eight off the bottom, not six, there are three teams running away with the division at the moment, almost unbeaten, with Blackpool not far behind. There's 10 points between 1st and 5th, an incredible margin after just 14 games. But we're only a third of the way through and a lot can still happen, as we saw last season. Boro were top about this time last year, finished 16th; Bolton were 17th, only just missed out on the play-offs.

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dubblue added 11:44 - Nov 8 On the positive side we are in a better position than this time last season to make the play-offs, on the negative side we are not picking up the points like we were last season when Mick took over.
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TimmyH added 13:20 - Nov 8 Mick really seems to be jabbering on in the above text (first 2 paragraphs) - let's sum it up Mick, we've let too many points slip and at present aren't playing that well. But yes agreed the Championship is pretty tight, but can see the top 6/7 in a few weeks time making a gap between the rest.
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blue_enough added 19:54 - Nov 8 I'm not an optimist. I'm not pessimist. Some would call me a realist but I have a feeling we will bag all three big ones tomorrow. COYB!!
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