McCarthy Hoping Town Can Build on Preston Performance Against Derby Tuesday, 31st Jan 2017 06:00 Town boss Mick McCarthy is hoping the Blues can build on Saturday’s improved display during the 1-1 draw at Preston when Derby County visit Portman Road this evening. McCarthy felt his side hadn’t played too badly in previous games, the FA Cup ties with Lincoln City aside, but thought the performance at Deepdale, where they would have claimed all three points but for Jordan Hugill’s late equaliser, was a step forward from previous away displays in particular. “If I look back at the matches against Bristol City, QPR, Blackburn, Huddersfield were a good side but I thought we competed against them for a long periods of the game without making many chances. "Our performances haven’t been that bad but I thought that was better than how we’ve performed away from home. “I thought it was a good performance on Saturday. I thought Toumani Diagouraga made a difference in the first half. He played alongside Skusey and gave us a real solid base. “I thought with Pits being back fit, fully fit we just had more of a threat. I thought we passed the ball well and I thought it was an all-round good performance. Let’s hope it’s the same in the next two matches.” After two away games, the 2-0 defeat at Huddersfield and the 1-1 draw with Preston, McCarthy is pleased to be back at home again. “Good to be back, we’ve played all right at home in the last few games, if you take Lincoln out of it. But as we’ve seen with the FA Cup [those results can happen], it’s been great for the FA Cup this year, all these giant killings. “Let’s hope it’s a good crowd, a good atmosphere and we have a performance like we’ve had in the last couple of league games there.” McCarthy says he’s put the FA Cup exit to the Imps, who beat Brighton, who are managed by his good friend Chris Hughton, in the fourth round on Saturday, firmly behind him. “I don’t give a s***e about the Lincoln result, it’s gone, not bothered. Good old Chris, good old Leeds [who lost to Sutton United], good old Liverpool [who lost to Wolves], good old all of them. “I can’t do anything about it because it’s in the rear-view mirror, I tend not to look behind me, to be honest.” McCarthy switched his side back to 4-4-2 at Preston having utilised a 3-5-2 system for the previous few games. “Two up front suits us, however you get that,” he reflected. “Two up front, we’re better off. We don’t have one marauding, powerful, quick individual that’s going to play up front on his own pretty much. “We did it for a while when Murph was here with Jonny Williams in behind him and that worked. It suits us better with two up front however we manage it.” McCarthy says Rams boss Steve McClaren, whose side went on a run of seven wins in a row and 10 games unbeaten towards the end of 2016, has done an impressive job since returning to Pride Park in October. “He’s come back rejuvenated, himself and the team,” the Town boss added. “He’s probably doing just what he did when he [was there before]. He was doing great before, even if we finished sixth and they finished eighth [in 2014/15]. “He’s got good players, he’s got a very expensively assembled squad of players and I think they are where they should be, whoever is working there. “Steve’s a good coach, he’s been proven to be that. He was the England coach, he’s gone to Holland and worked, he’s had a successful career. “He’s a good coach/manager coming back to work with good players and that’s generally a recipe for success.” Is he surprised that Derby haven’t won promotion before now given their resources? “I don’t know what happened, I’ve no idea. I was surprised when they didn’t finish in the play-offs [in 2014/15]. They looked like they were flying at certain periods of time and it all just petered out. “They’ve had an unbelievable run since he’s gone back, so I’m hoping it’s going to start petering out since Tuesday night.” Does he believe the Rams are the side outside the top six best equipped to break into the play-off places? “It’ll depend on who fights the hardest. They’ve got good players and a good manager and that’s a good starting point. I tend to be far luckier with a really good team, to be honest, like everybody else. “But there are some who are scrapping tooth and nail. Barnsley have lost player after player after player but they beat Leeds the other day and they’re flying. Preston, they’re flying, there seems to be a really good atmosphere around those clubs. “And it’s whoever just sticks with it and keeps picking up those results. Sometimes the better squads, the better players, when they have a couple of defeats it gets to them more than it does the teams who have been scrapping away. “Barnsley came up and I think they expected to be in a relegation fight and they’re in a promotion fight. I think those kind of teams are the ones that might just nick in it.” While the Blues won’t face their nemesis David Nugent this evening with the one-time England striker sidelined with a knee injury, Derby will have ex-Town striker Darren Bent in their ranks, a player McCarthy says he once tried to sign. “He’s had an excellent career,” he added. “I tried to sign him for Sunderland when he went to Charlton when we got promoted, but he went to Charlton then. We didn’t very close, I think it was almost a done deal.” McCarthy has added - at the time of writing - five new signings to his squad during the January transfer window, while a number of previously injured players are returning to fitness, both of which he says has an impact on the other members of his squad. “It does rub off on everybody else when people are coming back, whether it’s other people glad to see Didzy, Bish, Tommy Smith, players who have played, good players coming back,” he said. “And others that have been in the team and thinking ‘Hold on a minute, these lads coming back, I might be out if I don’t pick up’. It just adds competition for places.” Does that additional competition raise performance levels? “That sort of suggests that the others weren’t on their toes, which is kind of wrong because they are, I haven’t got anybody like that. “But it heightens the tension definitely, it puts them all on red alert because you want to stay in the team. “Tommy’s coming back, we’ve just signed Tayls [Steven Taylor], Bish is coming back, Danny Rowe’s come in, Kieffer’s come in and done really well. It just puts pressure on players. As I was told a long time ago, a little bit of insecurity makes you work harder.” The transfer window ends at 11pm this evening but McCarthy, who continues to look for additions, most notably the striker he has been after since the end of the summer window, says the final day coinciding with a matchday won’t have a huge impact on him. “No, I can’t wait until February 1st because then I can go back on the drink and I can stop taking phone calls from people offering me players who I don’t want, who I’ve never heard of and just get back to a bit of normality,” said the Town boss, who has been taking part in Dry January. “It doesn’t bother me, it is what it is. I wouldn’t be doing the transfers anyway, it’s poor old [club secretary] Sally Webb that would be inside doing the work, not me. “I’m the one that picks them out, tries to sign them and if I do I pass it on and other people do all that stuff. So it won’t affect me at all.”" He added: “If I’m still pinpointing them tomorrow night at a quarter to eight then I really don’t think we should be signing them, to be honest with you.” Bartosz Bialkowski will continue in goal, while the back four will probably be unchanged with Josh Emmanuel at right-back, Jonas Knudsen on the left and skipper Luke Chambers and Christophe Berra in the centre. In midfield, Cole Skuse is likely to be partnered by Toumani Diagouraga, who will be making his home debut with Tom Lawrence on the left and Grant Ward on the right. The Blues boss has decisions to make up front with Freddie Sears and Brett Pitman having started at Preston but with David McGoldrick and Kieffer Moore both having made an impact from the bench. Teddy Bishop is unlikely to be among the subs having played the full 90 minutes for the U23s at Charlton yesterday, while Steven Taylor's international clearance is yet to come through and fellow new signing Danny Rowe has a hip flexor problem and also won't be involved. The big team news for Derby is Nugent’s unavailability, which means the 31-year-old striker won’t be able to add to either his 15 goals in 15 games against the Blues or his 10 in eight games at Portman Road for Preston, Portsmouth, Leicester, Middlesbrough and the England U21s. Also missing for the Rams will be current England U21 international midfielder Will Hughes, who was subbed during Friday’s 2-2 FA Cup draw with Leicester due to a hamstring injury. Another midfielder, George Thorne, remains sidelined with the broken leg he suffered in the game against the Blues at Pride Park on the final day of last season. Ikechi Anya (hamstring) and Nick Blackman (knee) will be back in the Rams’ squad, but Max Lowe (groin) is not yet ready to travel despite having returned to training. Derby boss McClaren watched Town’s 1-1 draw at Deepdale and felt the Blues deserved all three points. “I went to go and watch them on Saturday at Preston and they should have won the game,” he told the Rams’ official site. “Everyone knows that Portman Road is very difficult place to go and get a result. If our attitude is not right then it could be our downfall there and we could get beat. “I’m focusing on that and if we get our attitude right then we have got a great chance of getting the result.” Historically, Town have had the better of Derby, winning 35 games (33 in the league), drawing 21 (19) and losing 26 (25). The away team has won the last four matches between the teams 1-0, two at Portman Road, two at Pride Park. At Pride Park, where the Blues are unbeaten in more than a decade, in September, Luke Varney netted against his old club eight minutes after coming on as a half-time sub to see the Blues to a hard-fought 1-0 victory. The striker hit a 25-yard shot - the Blues' first on target - which Rams keeper Scott Carson could only help on its way into his net. In December 2015 at Portman Road, Tom Ince’s 40th minute goal saw Derby County to a 1-0 victory. Town took the game to the Rams in the second half but rarely looked like getting on terms with the visitors, who climbed to second as a result of their victory. Former Blues striker Darren Bent joined the Rams in the summer of 2015 following a loan spell in the second half of last season. The 32-year-old came through the academy ranks at Playford Road and went on to make 116 starts and 25 sub appearances for the first team, scoring 55 goals, between 2001 and 2005 before moving on to then-Premier League Charlton. In addition to Bent, Rams centre-half and skipper Richard Keogh was an academy schoolboy and Portman Road ballboy during his formative years. Outcast Blues striker Leon Best spent the first half of the 2014/15 season on loan with the Rams, making three starts - all in cup competitions - and 17 sub appearances without scoring. Town keeper-coach Malcolm Webster held a similar position at Derby under George Burley's spell in charge of the Rams. Suffolk-born former Norwich striker Chris Martin is currently on loan at Fulham but is trying to extricate himself from his spell before the window closes having signed a new contract with the Rams. Tonight’s referee is Andrew Madley from West Yorkshire, who has shown 95 yellow cards and two red in 28 games so far this season. Madley’s most recent Town match was the 2-1 win at Sheffield Wednesday in November when he booked Cole Skuse and Grant Ward and one home player. Prior to that he took charge of the 1-0 defeat at Cardiff in March last year in which he kept his cards in his pocket throughout. He also refereed the 2-1 home victory over Wolves in November 2014 in which he booked Luke Chambers, Luke Hyam and Kevin Bru as well as two visiting players. In 2013/14 he officiated in the 1-1 home draw with Nottingham Forest and the 2-0 victory over Reading at Portman Road. The season prior to that he refereed his first Blues game, the 2-1 home defeat to tonight’s opponents Derby County, which turned out to be Paul Jewell’s last match as manager of Town. Squad from: Bialkowski, Gerken, Chambers (c), Knudsen, Emmanuel, Spence, Berra, Digby, Skuse, Diagouraga, Douglas, Bru, Dozzell, Ward, Lawrence, Sears, Pitman, McGoldrick, Moore.
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