McCarthy: We've Got Better With Each Game Friday, 15th May 2015 06:00 Town boss Mick McCarthy says Town go into Saturday’s Championship play-off semi-final second leg against Norwich City at Carrow Road having improved each time they have faced their deadliest rivals this season (Sky Sports 1, from midday. KO 12.15pm). During the regular campaign the Blues were beaten 1-0 at Portman Road by the Canaries in August and lost 2-0 at Carrow Road, but drew last week’s first leg 1-1 back on Suffolk soil. “The first game I thought they were much better than us, albeit the the goal was a scrappy affair, they were a better team,“ he said. “In the second game, I know it sounds daft, but the goals were the difference. However, in terms of the performance, there wasn’t a lot in it, it was just a scrappy game. “I thought last Saturday’s game was a much better performance by us. I don’t think either team deserved to win it, but I’d settle for playing as well as we did last week on Saturday.” McCarthy believes his team is capable of winning what would probably be the biggest ever East Anglian derby victory, in addition to a place at the Wembley play-off final where they would face either Middlesbrough or Brentford, who meet in their second leg this evening with the Teessiders 2-1 in front from the first. “I think we can go there and win, of course,” he insisted. “I might as well not bother, I might as well not be sat here, I might as well not turn up for work in the morning if I didn’t think we could. “Reasons why? Because we played really well last week. There was nothing between us on that performance. “They’re at home, slight favourites because of that, they have the crowd advantage if that does give them an advantage. I think you’ll find if they’re one down it’s a slight disadvantage. “And just the belief and trust that I have in my players that they’ll give everything. And in this league, nothing’s ever a given in this league.” Reflecting on the first leg, he added: “We certainly didn’t want to be beaten and it’s set it up that one of us has to win on Saturday. There are no away goals, somebody has to win the game.” He continued: “We were taking penalties this morning, just in case it goes to that because who knows, it could be won or lost in normal time or extra-time, it could go to penalties, it could be 10 or 12 penalties, nobody knows what’s going to happen. “We’re excited about the prospect of getting to Wembley and then hopefully getting to the Premier League.” He believes that there’s more pressure on the Canaries: “They’re the favourites as the home team and there’s slightly more pressure as the home team. “I know when we’re playing here and a team comes everybody expects us to win, and we hope to win, we expect to win. And it’ll be the same at Norwich this week. The pressure will be on. “But there’s a fair bit of pressure on us as well. Let’s not just try and heap all the pressure one way because that’s impossible. “There’s pressure on all of us. Me as a manager, my players, certainly Alex Neil and the Norwich players. They’re at home, it adds I think a greater expectancy to win the game, which adds a bit more pressure. We’ll see who handles it best come Saturday at a quarter past 12, won’t we?” Quizzed on whether he believes the first goal will be crucial, he said: “Well yes, but the winner will be massive. The first goal might be the winner, who knows? “All those factors come into play, they’re at home, they’ve got more crowd, but once the starts that doesn’t affect players, it’s a noise and it’s a great noise, it’s a buzz. “Of course, if you concede in that then the crowd do make a difference. If you don’t succeed and you’re playing well the crowd can make a difference the opposite way as well, suddenly they can get nervy and the dynamic changes and it changes the way players play.” McCarthy says he can’t wait for the game to come around having done all his regular pre-match work ahead of the first leg. “There’s nothing that I can do about the game until Saturday,” he said. “We’ve done our preparation, we did the preparation before the first game and they aren’t going to change and do something wholesale different. “There might be different personnel in but we know about them, we did all our analysis last week and we played them for 90 minutes. “We had another look, we watched the game again this week, and we’ll have another look on Friday. “But it’s paying lip service to it really because we know what we have to do on Saturday and it can’t come soon enough for me so I can stop talking about it!” He says he’s watched recent Norwich games, including the home defeats to Wigan and Middlesbrough, but says no specific chink in the Canaries’ armour emerged. “We had a look at them and read the reports on them and it doesn’t show one single weakness that we can exploit. “If somebody looked at our defeats here or away there wouldn’t be a single weakness in that I wouldn’t have thought. Not something where you’d say ‘Right, we can exploit that’.” McCarthy is expecting an intimidating atmosphere against the Blues’ biggest rivals but says the same would be the case whoever they were playing. “I’d be very surprised if we went anywhere to play the second leg of a play-off with such a prize at stake and it wasn't hostile,” he said. “The fact that it’s our nearest and not so dearest makes it a bit more. But I prefer that atmosphere to play in and I prefer it to manage in actually.” It’s unlikely that Carrow Road will match the atmosphere at a packed 120,000-capacity Azadi Stadium in Tehran in November 2001 when McCarthy’s Republic of Ireland side faced Iran in their World Cup play-off second leg defending a 2-0 lead. “I’ve loads of memories from that game,” he recalled of his only previous play-off success. “When the game was almost over they decided to set fire to every programme in the stadium and it was ablaze where people had left. “And then they scored [the only goal of the game] after about 93 minutes and suddenly the noise level - I don’t know where they all came from - erupted again and as they kicked off the referee blew for time. “It was an amazing atmosphere. They’d let them in hours and hours before so when we got there it was kicking off. I don’t know who they were kicking off with because there were only Iranians in at the time. It was an unbelievable atmosphere.” Regardless of what happens on Saturday or at Wembley, McCarthy is very proud of what his team has achieved this season. “I think they deserve any sense of pride that they get from the supporters. I know talking to the players it’s reciprocated. They’re delighted with the support that we get both home and away. “Everybody’s wanting to do it for themselves but, of course, the supporters are always going to be there and it would be lovely to reward them for their support this season.” In terms of his team selection, McCarthy seems unlikely to make any changes aside from the enforced switch caused by Luke Varney’s injury in the first leg. Bartosz Bialkowski will continue in goal with skipper Luke Chambers at right-back, Tyrone Mings on the left and Tommy Smith and Christophe Berra at the centre of the defence. The Town manager again seems set to go with a central midfield three of Cole Skuse, Kevin Bru and Teddy Bishop. Up front Daryl Murphy will be joined in a three by Freddie Sears and probably Paul Anderson, who impressed and scored having replaced Varney. David McGoldrick is likely to play some part from the bench having returned to the 18 ahead of last week’s game, although McCarthy has said he feels he's only fit enough for 20 minutes. For the Canaries, Lewis Grabban is again suspended having been red-carded for violent conduct in the penultimate Championship fixture at Rotherham. Norwich manager Alex Neil expects both sides to take a slightly different approach to the first game. “I do expect it to be a slightly different game," he told the Canaries' official website. "I think their approach will be slightly different, the fact that they’re away from home. “That’s only natural because although you might go in with the same game plan, it never really pans out the exact same away from home compared to when you’re at home. “I think our approach will be slightly different as well so it should be an interesting match.” He added: “You want to be part of these big days, you want to make sure you don’t fall at the final hurdle. “This hurdle for us is the one we need to overcome to make sure we get to the final and ultimately get to Wembley. “We know exactly what’s coming and we know exactly how we’re going to go about trying to win the game. Now it’s just about performing on the day and making sure we’re completely focused. “We’re really determined, really focused, and now we just can’t wait for it come.” At Carrow Road in the league in March, a goal in either half from Bradley Johnson and Grabban gave Norwich City a 2-0 victory over the Blues. Johnson opened the scoring on 24 with a strike off the underside of the bar with Grabban bundling in the second in the 62nd minute. Town’s last derby victory was at Portman Road towards the end of Norwich’s 2008/09 Championship relegation season with the Blues winning 3-2 in what proved to be Jim Magilton’s final game as boss. David Mooney put the Canaries in front before Town struck three times via Alan Quinn, Giovani Dos Santos (penalty) and Jon Stead with Sammy Clingan adding a consolation for the visitors towards the end, also from the spot. Current keeper Bartosz Bialkowski was on the bench for the Blues during his earlier loan spell at the club. The last time Town won at Carrow Road was back in February 2006 when an 88th minute goal forced in by a combination of Danny Haynes's hand and Norwich defender Gary Doherty gave the Blues a deserved victory. The home side had gone ahead in the first half through Jonatan Johansson but the ex-Addick deflected in a Jimmy Juan freekick soon afterwards. Historically, Town have the better record in East Anglian derbies, winning 40 (38 in the league), losing 38 (32) and drawing 18 (15). The 5-1 at Portman Road in 2011 is Norwich’s biggest derby victory, while Town have recorded 5-0 wins on three occasions, in 1946, 1977 and 1998. Town are competing in the play-offs at what’s now Championship level for a record eighth time, 1986/87, each season from 1996/97 to 1999/00, 2003/04 and 2004/05. The Blues have reached the final only once when they beat Barnsley 4-2 at the old Wembley. Norwich by contrast are in the Championship’s end of season lottery for only the second time having lost 4-2 on penalties to Birmingham City at the Millennium Stadium in 2001/02 after the game had ended 0-0 at full-time and 1-1 after extra-time. Blues boss McCarthy has previously taken part in six play-offs as a manager but has won only once, the World Cup 2002 games against Iran when in charge of the Republic of Ireland, with whom he had previously lost to Belgium for a place at the 1998 tournament and Turkey for a spot at Euro 2000. At Championship level he has faced defeat in the semi-finals with Millwall (1993/94), Sunderland (2003/04) and Wolves (2006/07). Norwich boss Alex Neil saw his previous club Hamilton Academical into the SPL via the Scottish Championship play-offs in his first full season as a manager last year, beating Hibs 4-3 on penalties after a 2-2 draw on aggregate. Norwich centre-half Ryan Bennett was an academy schoolboy with the Blues before being released at 16, while academy coach Alan Lee had a brief spell on loan at Carrow Road and played for the Canaries in the 2009 Portman Road derby. His Playford Road colleague Steve Foley was first-team coach at Norwich before he joined the Blues and came close to returning to Norfolk last summer. Town keeper-coach Malcolm Webster worked with Norwich’s glovesmen earlier in his career. Abellio Greater Anglia are laying on additional trains before and after the game, while Norfolk Constabulary have issued advice for the travelling 2,042 Town fans with no designated away pub available in Norwich. Supporters without tickets are advised not to make the trip. Carrow Road’s gates and bars open at 10.45am and fans are being advised to arrive early. Saturday’s referee is Roger East from Wiltshire, who has shown 99 yellow cards and four red in 30 games so far this season. East’s most recent Town match was the 2-2 draw at Birmingham in August in which he booked just one home player. Squad from: Bialkowski, Gerken, Chambers (c), Hewitt, Mings, Fryers, Smith, Berra, Clarke, Skuse, Bishop, Bru, Ambrose, Chaplow, Parr, Anderson, Tabb, S Hunt, Murphy, Sears, McGoldrick, N Hunt.
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