McCarthy Taking Each Game As it Comes Friday, 9th Dec 2016 06:00 Boss Mick McCarthy is taking the traditional each game as it comes approach as the Blues, who face third-bottom Cardiff City at Portman Road on Saturday, look to find some consistent form. Town are yet to win back-to-back games this season and haven’t recorded the same result in consecutive matches since the draws with Wolves and Norwich in August. McCarthy says he’s currently not thinking ahead to Tuesday's game at Birmingham or next Saturday's trip to Wigan let alone the Blues' longer term future, instead preferring to concentrate on each match as it comes as he looks to end the recent "one step forward, one step back" form. “It’s an age old habit of managers and coaches to try and focus on one game, " he said. "I get asked about what we’re going to do in the future. Well, the future is Saturday for me because then we can carry on and keep going on, keep going on and keep going on, if we win, if we play well. That’s the most important thing for me on Saturday.” He added: “At this moment in time I’m interested in beating Cardiff and that will give us whatever springboard we need to move forward and that’s all we have to keep doing - moving forward." How can the 16th-placed Blues rediscover their consistency? “Everybody’s tried everything, haven’t they? They go to psychologists, they go out paint-balling, they go out playing golf, they go out for a drink, they do less training, more training. “We’ve all tried everything. But working on the training ground is generally the way forward.” It’s little surprise, given that Town have scored only 17 times all season, that most of that work has centred on attacking play. “It might be getting monotonous because we work on that every day at some stage - how we get there, how we get players in the positions and get the goals,” McCarthy continued. “But I’ve watched the [Bristol City] game back again and the difference in the game was that they got a penalty and an unbelievable wonder goal.” While the Blues have struggled to score at one end, there are only three clubs in the Championship who have conceded fewer than their goals against total of 19, which McCarthy believes provides a platform upon which Town can build. “Absolutely, when we had the seven out of 11 clean sheets the problem was we didn’t score. Well, we did score, we scored at Wolves and it was disallowed for offside and we scored against Norwich and it was disallowed for offside,” he reflected. “But we have got a base for that and I wouldn’t say we’re not conceding goals because we sit back and defend, far from it. We just need to improve on goalscoring, goal creating.” The Town boss says he has told his players they each need to concentrate on their own game: “I think we all have to be responsible for our jobs, I’ve said that to them today. “I’ve got to be responsible for the whole club, I’ll be responsible for the results, for picking the team, for team performances. “And I think at times like this it’s important that individuals hold ourselves responsible for how we play, how we prepare, how we do things coming into Christmas, making sure we take care of ourselves. “And actually not be looking at anybody else to blame, to hold account for what’s going on at the club, results and performances, it’s us. Each and every one of us has got to look at ourselves and think, can we do better?” He says there’s never been any problem with effort and attitude from his players and says that in some ways it would make his job easier if there was. “I’ve never, ever questioned the commitment of the players or the work-rate or the endeavour,” he said. “I said on Saturday to them that I wish sometimes that was the case because I could come in and get stuck into some lazy so-and-so and have a right pop. But no, they’re fully committed, they give me everything every week, I could never question that. “Can we be better, can we have a final pass that’s better? Of course we can. Can we have a final cross, can we have a better finish, can we get ourselves into better positions and not stop and watch it whereas if you’d kept running forward you might end up in the box and you score? “All those things, that’s the responsibility I’m talking about, not a responsibility to be working hard and giving me everything because they are terrific, they give me that every week.” Like fans, McCarthy wants to see the Town side which beat Sheffield Wednesday and QPR on Saturday rather than the one which then lost the following games to Nottingham Forest and then Bristol City. “They’re no different to me, I’m hoping that’s going to happen as well and I’m working towards making sure that does happen,” he continued. “Can we do it, of course we can because we’ve done it before and we’ve seen what the league is like. “Blackburn looked like they were dead and buried and then they go up to Newcastle and win and Owen Coyle’s looking at the Manager of the Month award. “That’s how the season is, that’s how the league is and we’ve seen those results all the time. “We should be favourites playing here against Cardiff, let’s hope that proves to be the case.” He added: “What do I think fans expect? I think they turn up and expect to watch the team compete, to watch them hopefully play good football, win the game and try and do as well as they can. “We’re doing pretty much most of that, but I don’t think we’re entertaining them particularly at the minute because we’re not scoring goals but we’re trying our damnedest to do it, it’s not like we’re not. Everybody’s giving that 100 per cent and putting all the effort in. “So that’s what I’d like to achieve on Saturday - they come and watch us, we play well, we win and people go away thinking they’re looking forward to the next game. At this moment in time the only thing I can focus on is this next game.” He believes entertaining fans is important but says that even comfortable wins aren’t necessarily easy on the eye throughout. “We won 3-0 here against QPR and if anybody felt for one minute that we were wonderfully free-flowing and played expansive football like Barcelona or Manchester City they’d be sadly mistaken, and neither did QPR,” he said. “But we kept going and scored the goal and then we got the next goal and we kept going and it could have been five or six, and then it was entertaining and everybody goes away and remembers that. “It seems like a great game, but up until the second goal going in it wasn’t, it was a turgid scrap, Championship football. But everybody went away happy, me included. Wasn’t that nice?” McCarthy wants Portman Road to become somewhere opposition sides dread visiting, as was the case during the 2014/15 play-off season. “They always have in the past and I guess we go back an earlier question, it’s about scoring goals,” he said. “If we can get our noses in front and be better in front of goal, then we’ve got a better chance of doing it.” McCarthy knows his Cardiff counterpart Neil Warnock well, the pair having been at Barnsley together as players. “I probably cleaned his boots because I was an apprentice. He loves that story!” the Town boss recalled. “Warney came, he was a winger playing for Barnsley and I played in the reserves with him for quite a long time. “He was a character then, I always enjoyed his company, enjoyed playing with him and he’s gone on and had a far more successful career as a manager than he did as a player. And I look forward to seeing him. He’s always good company. “He’s like a boomerang. I know he was adamant he wasn’t coming back [into management] this time. “He came back at Rotherham [last season] and did a great job there and I’ve no doubt [he’ll do the same at Cardiff]. I’ve seen two or three of their games, they beat Huddersfield [3-2 at home] recently, they drew [0-0] with Brighton last week and he changes his team accordingly.” What are Warnock’s attributes as a manager? “I’ve never worked with him in terms of his management ability or skills. What he has is good organisational skills, he gets the best out of people and I think he isolates games and picks them and changes his team accordingly in order to get results, and that’s what he does. “And I think that is what you have to do when you’re down near the bottom. You don’t just go out and think, ‘We’re the best team, we’re going to play this way’ because that doesn’t always work. And I think he’s very good at that. “And however he does it he gets them all to run around and work for him and put a shift in. He’s good at that. “It’ll be tough, no doubt about that because they’ve still got some players that were bought when they were in the Premier League.” Does he believe the Bluebirds will win their battle against the drop? Yes, and I am surprised that they are even in the position they’re in. They’ve got more than enough to stay up.” Having publicly named his team for last week’s game at Ashton Gate on the Thursday, McCarthy is keeping this Saturday’s XI under wraps. “I tell you why I did it last week, it was out of respect for my own team who had played really well against QPR. “And what was the point of dressing it up? Everybody guessed it was going to be the same team so trying to be smart-arsed and saying ‘I’m going to do this’ just wasn’t worth it. “And actually I thought the team played well last week, pretty much most of the game. We just went to sleep and gave a penalty away and I’ve gone through the winner and that couldn’t be stopped. “It was a rubbish freekick that they put in, Jonas [Knudsen] put a good header on it, he headed it about 20 yards and I was right behind it, it was a missile, never deviated off the top corner.” Having been pleased with the overall performance last week, if not the result, McCarthy seems unlikely to make too many changes to his side and will probably stick with 4-4-2 rather than switching to match Cardiff's recent dogged 4-3-3/4-5-1 system. Bartosz Bialkowski will be in goal with Knudsen and skipper Luke Chambers the full-backs and Adam Webster and Christophe Berra, who is expected to be fine despite a cut foot, the centre-halves. In midfield, Tom Lawrence and Grant Ward - or perhaps Freddie Sears - will be in the wide roles and Jonathan Douglas, Kevin Bru or Teddy Bishop in the centre with Cole Skuse, while Luke Varney will again partner David McGoldrick up front. Brett Pitman will be back in the 18 for the first time since suffering an ankle injury at Leeds in September. For Cardiff, who are five points and six places behind the Blues, several members of the squad have been suffering with a sickness bug this week but manager Warnock is hopeful everyone will be fine to face he Blues. Former England striker Rickie Lambert is a significant doubt having missed the Brighton game last week and having only been involved in straight-line running in training this week. Full-back Jazz Richards misses out having suffered calf and knee problems, while Lee Peltier is back having been suspended for the Brighton match. Warnock echoed Ian Holloway's recent comments regarding the current terrace criticism of McCarthy. "Mick’s done a fabulous job," he said. "I always think it’s like when people shout for Wenger’s head, be careful what you wish for. If they’d [Ipswich] spent millions and millions, fair enough. "He rang me in the summer and told him to sign [Grant] Ward, I told him to sign him, I hope he’s not playing tomorrow! He asked me about the lad and he did brilliantly for me at Rotherham so I was pleased to see it." Town have the upper hand historically, winning 21 (19 in the league), drawing 13 (13) and losing 13 (12). The teams last met at the Cardiff City Stadium in March when Bruno Ecuele Manga’s 18th minute goal saw the Bluebirds to a 1-0 victory. The defender nodded home Peter Whittingham’s corner at the near post with Town rarely seriously threatening to find a reply. At Portman Road in October last year, Town’s winless league run stretched to seven games as the Blues drew 0-0 with Cardiff City. Daryl Murphy went closest to breaking the deadlock in the first half when Bluebirds keeper David Marshall tipped his header from a Bru corner against the woodwork. Cardiff midfielder Stuart O’Keefe was an academy schoolboy with Town, while the visitors' Icelandic midfielder Aron Gunnarsson had a trial with the Blues' youth set-up when also a schoolboy. Bluebirds central defender Semi Ajayi, who is yet to make a senior appearance for the Welsh club, was on trial with Town in January 2015 when he played a game for the U21s, coincidentally against Cardiff. Town loanee Tom Lawrence spent the second half of last season on loan at Cardiff, making 11 starts and three sub appearances without scoring. Saturday’s referee is James Adcock from Nottinghamshire, who has shown 58 yellow cards and one red in 19 games so far this season. Adcock’s last Town match was the 3-0 defeat at Newcastle in October in which he booked Jonas Knudsen and two home players. He was also in charge of the 1-0 win at Leeds United in September last year in which he booked Jonny Parr and three home players. Prior to that he took control of the 1-1 home draw with Blackburn in October 2014 in which Matt Kilgallon was red-carded for a second bookable offence and Cole Skuse and former Blue Ryan Tunnicliffe were both also cautioned. Before that he refereed the 2-0 loss at Wigan in September 2013 in which he booked Tommy Smith and Christophe Berra. Adcock’s first Town game was the 3-0 home victory over Leeds in which defender Tom Lees was red-carded for a wild challenge on Jay Tabb midway through the first half. Three other Whites, Luke Chambers and Aaron Cresswell were also yellow-carded during that match. Squad from: Bialkowski, Gerken, Chambers (c), Knudsen, Emmanuel, Kenlock, Webster, Berra, Skuse, Douglas, Bishop, Bru, Dozzell, Williams, Ward, Lawrence, Varney, McGoldrick. Sears, Best, Pitman.
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