McCarthy: Owner Still Backs Me Tuesday, 13th Dec 2016 06:00 Boss Mick McCarthy says owner Marcus Evans remains firmly behind him, despite Town's disappointing season and a significant number of fans calling for a change of manager at Portman Road. He also reiterated his intention to see out his contract with the Blues. Asked what his message would be to those supporters who believe he is no longer the man to take Town forward, McCarthy said: “You expect me to sit here and argue my corner?” Pressed further, McCarthy said he’s become increasingly weary of talking with the media about his position, the matter never having been discussed with Evans or club MD Ian Milne. “Over the last month, and I’ve thought about this actually, [I’ve got] a little bit tired of speaking about my position, my job, and answering questions from you or from anybody else about my position and what I think and what I’m going to do. “Because I’ve never had that discussion with anybody else, like Marcus or Ian Milne. It’s just other people questioning whether I should be the manager. “At the Supporters Club AGM, I said to them that my contract runs out in 18 months’ time and I’ll continue to do my best and that’s all that’s ever going to happen.” Has Evans remained firmly behind him when the two have talked? “I haven’t spoken to him for a couple of days, but in answer to your question, yes, I believe he is, I don’t doubt that.” He added: “That’s probably the last thing I’ll say about my job and we’ll just see.” McCarthy said at the end of October that he was in his most difficult spell since taking over at Town in November 2012 with matters not having got any easier since then. “We’ve hardly been ripping it up," he admitted. "It has been the toughest spell, I don’t think I need to spell that out for anybody. “If you look at just results and the way it’s gone in the past from 14th, ninth, sixth, seventh, we’re in run of games that we’ve not suffered really in terms of results since my first season here. “It is the toughest period, but we’ve not been out of games. It’s been crazy really because when we had seven clean sheets out of 11 games we could score, we had all our better players, in inverted commas, our creative, scoring players missing. “Now we’ve got them back we can’t keep a clean sheet to save our lives, we just keep making mistakes. “We made two against Rotherham, two against Forest and we made a mistake on Saturday. And it really does make it extremely difficult to get back in the game. “If you’re not on top of your own game when you’re conceding like we’re doing it makes it doubly difficult.” Is he concerned about the situation with the Blues yet to record back-to-back victories this season and in 17th only five points off the relegation zone? “And seven points off the play-offs,” he was quick to point out. “That’s just the way it is. And I look at other teams that are probably on around 30 points, which is not an insurmountable amount for us to get back, five points, that are supposedly having good seasons and doing really well. “I’m always worried when results aren’t as good as I’d like or performances aren’t as good as I’d like. “That wouldn’t change if we were in the top six and I thought we were just dropping out of the top six. Yes, I’d like results to be better and we’ll continue to work to do it.” Given the negativity surrounding the club at present, among supporters at the ground, in the media, on social media such as Twitter, does he feel it’s easy for his players to concentrate? “I don’t know whether they’re interacting with fans on Twitter or reading [the media], I’ve no idea,” he said. “If they’ve got any sense, which probably most of them haven’t, they wouldn’t read it and they wouldn’t interact with fans. “I’ve always tended to find that it’s better to isolate yourself. It’s doesn’t make you feel any better hearing anybody else’s comments because I’ve always felt worse than anybody else could make me feel if I’m not playing well or results have been going badly. That was as a player and it’s the same as a manager. “Having other people telling you it’s not going well when it’s as plain as the nose on my face it’s not going great, you just don’t need that. It doesn’t make it any easier. “I didn’t think the atmosphere was bad on Saturday at Portman Road, to be honest, and I thought right to the very end they stayed with us, and coming off after the game. “But I get it, it’s not going to be the most positive atmosphere in the ground, around the town, in the media, in the local media because everybody wants Ipswich to win, everybody who is an Ipswich fan. Me included.”
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