McCarthy: TFFT Saturday, 17th Dec 2016 18:29 Town boss Mick McCarthy joked that ‘TFFT’ would be the way to phrase a text reacting to the Blues’ 3-2 win away at Wigan. David McGoldrick’s header won it for the Blues in the 88th minute. “I think if you were sending a text you’d put TFFT, I think that’s what they put, don’t they? I think that’s what they do. If you’re more polite you just say, ‘Phew’,” he said. McCarthy was pleased with the way his reshaped team started, although he was unable to comment on the penalty from which Brett Pitman gave the Blues the lead in the seventh minute, although it looked to have been for a foul on Tom Lawrence by Dan Burn. “I thought we started very, very well, I thought we were excellent for half an hour and got in front,” he added. “I don’t know what the penalty was for, I haven’t got a clue, so if you ask me whether it was, I don’t know. “But having got it and having scored it I thought we were all over them and should have taken advantage of it and didn’t. “There were a couple of things, we lost the ball up in their final third and they ended up with a freekick and I knew as soon as they made a mess of the first freekick and they gave one against Freddie for a high foot, that it was an absolute racing certainty that it would end up in the net. That’s just the way the season’s been going. “Then they were better than us, certainly in the second half. Warren Joyce must be scratching his head thinking, ‘How the hell have we lost that game?’. “But our subs have made a real impact, once they’ve come on they’ve changed the game. I never thought we were out of it, a third one would have killed us, but I never thought we were out if it. “Our back four had a tough old afternoon today and Bart pulled their backsides out of the bacon slicer a number of times.” Town’s equaliser, Pitman’s second of the game, came at a stage when the Blues were under the cosh and Wigan looked set to go on to win. But McCarthy felt the Latics’ earlier equaliser came similarly against the run of play: “Their first one, they’d not been in it either. If I could explain it I’d write a book and sell it and I should be able to retire off that, if I could explain the finer detail of momentum changes and why it changes. “I just know it changes off the back of goals and once they got their second they were battering us for a while, then once we got our second I thought we looked like we might get our third.” Regarding his starting XI, which featured five changes, including Andre Dozzell and Jonny Williams, he said: “Did my line-up win the game for me? Certainly Brett did, but it was actually two lads who I left out, Wardy and Didzy, who came on and made a great impact. “But I thought the 30 minutes at the start with the team that we had on the pitch was really positive and I thought we should have done better with the quality we had on the pitch with Jonny and Dozzer. “But what I was doing wasn’t working, so the first sign of madness is that if you keep doing it, you’re definitely mad. “I thought Dozzer had a great first half and it got hard then in the second half. They were on top of us and I needed reinforcements and that’s what I got. “Kevin Bru came on and I thought he played well, as did Didzy. They were dominating the game and I had to change that.” Has it been difficult getting Williams into the team with McGoldrick starting in previous matches? “Yes, but it was better with Pits and Jonny because Pits will stay right up the middle and he’ll be up against the centre-backs and it gives Jonny a bit of room to play. And he did, he got up behind things, I thought he played well. “Didzy’s different, Didzy likes to drop in and play in those same positions, so we end up with nobody up front. So Pits is a good foil for him.” Once again Town’s team spirit went a long way to seeing them to a hard-fought win and McCarthy believes claiming the three points will boost confidence: “I think it says nice and good things and positive things about it [the win], but it’ll be even better after that win and three points. We can enjoy that now.” Prior to the match he described the game as a six-pointer and he believes the match was very much in that sort of territory. “We were,” the Town boss continued. “Had we lost that our demeanour and our thought would have been so different. “And our fans would have rightly been thinking, ‘Hold on a minute, we’re in a relegation scrap’. What are we, we’re on 28 points and it all looks a better place, that’s for sure.” He added: “We’ve not been that far away, we’ve not been great but we’ve not been rubbish either. But it looked today that it was going to go against us again but if it’s the team spirit and the togetherness that’s got us through, then great.” Prior to Pitman’s equaliser there were chants aimed at McCarthy by some of the 554 travelling Blues, but the Blues boss says winning gave him no additional satisfaction due to that. “They’ve been giving it to me for months,” he said. “Water off a duck’s back. I prefer it when they’re enjoying watching us and are supporting us and me. “But I’m doing my best to change that around. I don’t like producing turgid, horrible displays of football which don’t games, but I can enjoy that for nine days. But it doesn’t have me breaking down crying when I go home. “The only satisfaction I get is they’ve seen those goals go in that goal and they’ve seen us win. “I’m not scoring points against our fans. Our fans have been brilliant to me. I’ve had four years, there’s been nothing but upward and onward and real support. We’re not doing great, so I’m getting a bit of stick. I probably deserve it.” Was it a difficult decision to leave Myles Kenlock out, the 20-year-old having impressed against Birmingham on Tuesday when Jonas Knudsen was out with a hamstring niggle? “Yes, a little bit, but I was always going to play Jonas,” he said. “I wanted the back four that’s been the mainstay of the team to play when I’ve got Jonny and Doz and everything else. “I didn’t really need a young left-back. It might have posed a risk with him. But he was great on Tuesday night and he can play in the team, he’s good.” Wigan manager Warren Joyce was disappointed that his team allowed their 2-1 lead to slip, but also with the Blues' early penalty. “I’ve probably sat here and said the same things for the last few games," he said. "I’m disappointed. Obviously the first goal’s a real kick in the teeth because it wasn’t a penalty and you end up being 1-0 down which puts you in a difficult situation. “The way results have gone, not the performances, but the results, it means it tests your character and I thought we showed a lot of character. “It wasn’t quite smooth in the first half but I thought we were good value to get back in at 1-1. “In the second half we’ve played some really good flowing football and I don’t think scoring three or four goals would have been unrealistic really. “I think we could have managed the game better at 2-1, to see it out, not only for a 2-1 win but I think the way Yanic Wildschut was playing, you keep getting the ball [to him], every time he got it looked like something was going to happen. "You’ve got to recognise things like that in a game and keep getting it to him as much as you can. When we did, I thought we created chances and we would have been good value for three or four goals.” He added: “It’s like a boxing match, at 2-1 you’ve got to put them to the sword, you’ve got to be ruthless, there were loads of good opportunities, loads of good efforts going across the face. At 3-1 the game’s dead, at 2-1 you’re always vulnerable.”
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