McCarthy: 49 Points Ought to Be Enough Thursday, 6th Apr 2017 19:26 Town boss Mick McCarthy believes the three points gained from Tuesday’s 3-0 victory over Wigan were probably enough to secure the Blues’ Championship status for a 16th season. The win against the second-bottom Latics took 17th-placed Town to 49 points, nine ahead of Blackburn Rovers in 22nd, realistically the only relegation spot still up for grabs. “I think it’s going to be hard for the five teams beneath us to get to 49 points,” McCarthy reflected. “Equally, it’s going to be hard for us to get another nine points, which would take us to 58 or, let’s aim higher, 60. “I’m more worried about us getting more points than what they get, but I’d like to put it to bed with our performances and our results and not worry about anybody else.” McCarthy says he wants the Blues to be 100 per cent safe before he bloods any youngsters - “Pretty much, we’ll see” - with six games of the campaign remaining. While happy with the overall performance against the Latics, there were aspects of the display with which he was less than impressed. “There were things that annoyed me,” he admitted. “We gave them far too many opportunities to put the ball in our box, just by giving stupid freekicks away. “They didn’t trouble us in open play at all, only if we gave the ball away, we were really negligent sometimes. “Jordan gave the first freekick away at the start of the second half, Myles gave one away in just about the same position and they flashed the ball across the box. “Chambo gave one away. It was just ‘There you are, put it in’ and they’ve got big players. And if you put deliveries in like they do they’re always difficult to deal with. “You get stats for everything these days and when I came to the club we were top of the league for giving away freekicks in our defensive third. We gave more away than any other team. “We went from that to being the meanest and not giving them away. And that’s what we’ve got to be again because with some of the people who deliver balls into the box it’s a recipe for disaster, you give them a chance to score.” Looking ahead to Saturday’s trip to Fulham, he says he wouldn’t be too disappointed if the Cottagers’ only threats came from set pieces. “I’d settle for only giving Fulham chances from freekicks and corners because that’s pretty much what we did [on Tuesday],” he said. “There was another chance in general play but I think we’d given the ball away. But look, Wigan are where they are, I think they’re the lowest scorers in the league.” When Town did give the Latics chances on Tuesday keeper Bartosz Bialkowski was equal to everything sent in his direction. What impact does that have on defenders, knowing they have such a reliable pair of hands behind them? “It doesn’t make you think you can make a slip just to work him out," McCarthy laughed. "But he’s been outstanding. “I’m brutally honest about it and I look at some of the performances and we could have, and probably should have, won more games than we have. “Reading here, Leeds here, Brighton away even - prior to them hitting the post in the second half we’d been peppering their goal and their keeper had made good saves. “So we could have had more points but equally we could have had fewer points because Bart’s pulled some saves out that have kept it at one-all or 0-0. He’s saved us. Maybe we are where we are and deserve the points that we’ve got.” Following Freddie Sears’s late goal to seal the three points Jordan Spence and Christophe Berra both celebrated with Bialkowski, who seconds earlier had made an important double stop. “I didn’t see that, I was looking at Freddie put the ball in the net,” McCarthy continued. “But I watched it again this morning and I’d forgotten about that chance, the header. Callum Connolly, the sub, got a free header after they took a short corner and put it in and Bart made an unbelievable save. “And 30 seconds later its in their net. Maybe that’s the way it goes when you’re in that relegation zone, that bottom three.”
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