McCarthy: "Embarrassing", "a Shambles", "Completely Disgraceful" Saturday, 29th Jul 2017 18:27 Town boss Mick McCarthy conceded that the Blues 6-1 thrashing by League One Charlton in their final pre-season game was “embarrassing”, “a shambles” and “completely disgraceful”, and admitted that if his side play as they did against the Addicks once the Championship season gets under way “we as a club are in trouble and I’m in trouble”. “It was embarrassing,” he said afterwards. “It was a shambles completely, a completely disgraceful performance from us. That certainly doesn’t reflect how I am that’s for sure, in terms of how we played - a lack of aggression, a lack of spirit, a lack of cohesion. “Everything that went wrong did go wrong, they scored some wonder goals, everything went right for them. So I’m going to have 20 quid on them getting beaten next week and 20 quid on us winning because we will be better, that’s for sure.” Why weren’t his players up for it? “No idea. We started all right, we gave a freekick away, they scored from it, which was too easy. We then gave a really simple goal away and the way they were playing they just passed it around us. “I would have changed the shape of the team but I wanted to see how it was at half-time and I left it purposely until half-time.” He added: “I’ve been in games when you’re getting well beaten and it’s difficult to press high. One goes, the other fella doesn’t go with him and you get played around. “And they’re good. I knew they’d be good. I said to the lads beforehand, if we go individually we’ll get played around. “And then 2-0 up gives them the ability to start at the back, keep it and it was hard to get a press on. As I say, I would have changed it.” Earlier in pre-season the Blues had scored regularly - largely through Joe Garner - but against Charlton they rarely looked like adding to Andre Dozzell’s single strike. “It’s hard to score goals from the position we were in,” he reflected. “We gave a silly freekick away, unnecessary. It’s a good delivery, but he heads it too easily, we should have marked like we’d mark at a corner and didn’t. “The second goal we passed it across our box and it’s difficult then to get goals back. But I’m not bothered whether it’s difficult to score goals. If it had ended up as 2-0 then I’d have gone, ‘It’s 2-0 because we gave away stupid goals’. To end up as six is just a disgrace.” The result will inevitably cause fans to worry ahead of the new season, something McCarthy says he fully understands. “If we play like that then they’ve got reason to worry, haven’t they?” he admitted. “But they won’t play like that.” Did the illness and injury situation have an impact on the performance and result? “We still shouldn’t play like that. I’m not going to make an excuse for that, we shouldn’t play that way because there’s been a few missing. Whatever happens we should still perform better than that and show a bit more desire to play. “I’ve just said to them, if that was in November the quote would be, ‘He’s lost the dressing room, they don’t want to play for him’. That’s what it looked like. I know that’s not the case but that’s what would be said and I couldn’t argue with it.” David McGoldrick is the latest player to pick up the bug which has been going around the club during pre-season. “He’s poorly, so whatever virus has been brought into the camp it’s certainly had a fairly devastating effect,” he continued. “We need to get the players back, that’s for sure. “I don’t know whether Didzy will be fit [for next week], we’ll see how he recovers, and Skusey has had it all week as well and that didn’t help him playing “I’ll see what effect it has on him and now bad he is. If it’s anything like Tom Adeyemi or Bersant Celina, Saturday might come to soon for him.” He added: “There have [been a few things conspiring against us] but as ever you’re not going to hear me making excuses about it. “That still does not excuse that performance, the fact that Emyr Huws is not playing, Tom Adeyemi, Didzy, Teddy Bishop, who we all know how he can play, he’s been in pre-season, Luke Hyam, he’s not played for a long time. “To have those players missing and Skusey being ill and Bersant Celina, another one that we’ve signed and has not been fit to even have a look at it. It’s a disruptive influence, yes. But that still does not excuse what we’ve seen this afternoon.” Aside from those currently ill or injured is he worried other players, such as Cole Skuse, Adam Webster and skipper Luke Chambers, are undercooked having missed much of pre-season due to earlier illnesses or injuries? “It worries me greatly but I can’t do anything other than just keep trying to get them fit. Chambo’s missed a lot of football, Webbo, I put him on for half a game because he needs to get some minutes.” Prior to today’s game McCarthy had been happy with the way pre-season had progressed - “I was, but then we’ve had an unnatural disaster” - however, he says the performance will give him much to think about going into Saturday’s opener against Birmingham City: “Today has a big bearing on it, of course.” Has he learned something about his players from the match? “Right at the very start I said about my two 20 quid bets because we’ll be all right. That doesn’t reflect the feeling in the club or how it is. “And maybe a kick up the arse isn’t the worst thing to get. It always appears as ‘Will they be so depressed….’. I’d like to think the opposite that they’ll be running around like blue-arsed flies next week and making tackles and competing far better. And we win.” Is his message to fans not to judge his team on that performance? “It’s not easy, is it? We had a poor end to the season the two games that we won against Newcastle and Burton apart. We had a poor season. “It doesn’t bode well for anybody in terms of how they feel about me or how they feel about the team or about the club getting slapped here 6-1. But come along and cheer us and support us and let’s hope we can beat Birmingham. And if we don’t I accept the inevitable.’ The inevitable being boos, the final whistle today having led to boos, something McCarthy had no problem with. “And rightfully so, I’d have been booing if I’d have been watching it,” he said. “You always ask me these questions as if I ought to be going ‘I don’t like that’, but I fully understand it and, yes, we’ve got to play well on Saturday and we’ve pretty much got to win. “Because if we don’t it’s starting the season where we left off last season and that’s not good for anybody.” He admits he’s never known a pre-season end on a similar result: “I’ve never been done 6-1 in the last friendly before the season starts. It’s something else I’ve experienced now.” He says he’s not called an extra training session for Sunday as some bosses might in similar circumstances: “I’ve just said to them that that’s something that some managers would do. “But I think then they end up resenting me for doing that. They don’t do it on purpose. They’re not a lacklustre bunch at all, they are a great bunch of lads, so I’d expect a reaction without me having to be threatening people, dragging them in and ruining their Sunday, having them in at 12 o’clock just because I feel angry. That’s not the right thing to do.” The Town boss says Birmingham manager Harry Redknapp will inevitably give the result a mention ahead of Saturday’s match but more as a warning to his players. “I know what he’ll be saying, ‘I know Mick and I’d expect his team to react from that’,” he said. “And so would I. And if we don’t, if we play like that, we as a club are in trouble and I’m in trouble.” Asked whether there is any further news on a new striker, he added: “No, not at the moment. And I hope Joe Garner’s not got any problems coming off either, we’ll see how he is.” McCarthy dismissed yesterday’s report claiming the Blues are interested in Wigan striker Omar Bogle: “No, nothing in that at all.” Charlton boss Karl Robinson wasn't getting too carried away by the result, despite the emphatic margin of victory. “The first half replicated how we played at Stevenage [in a 2-1 win last Saturday]," he said. "It’s just this time we took our chances when they came along. “It’s a very good performance — but it’s meaningless. It’s a confidence-booster going into the season. “You can see we’re up to speed. You can see there is a hunger about us — but a real ball has not rolled yet. “It’s aggressive football. Everything came together for us and it didn’t for Ipswich."
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