McCarthy: Evans Still as Committed to Town and Winning Promotion After 10 Years at Club Friday, 15th Dec 2017 16:34 Boss Mick McCarthy says owner Marcus Evans remains as committed to the club as ever and his desire to get Town promoted as strong, despite 10 years having passed since his December 2007 takeover. Evans’s ownership of the club was rubber-stamped at an EGM held a decade ago this coming Sunday, former chairman David Sheepshanks having confirmed that the deal had been agreed two weeks previously. Promotion to the Premier League as quickly as possible was Evans’s aim with incumbent boss Jim Magilton and his successors Roy Keane and Paul Jewell given sizeable war chests with which to build squads in order to achieve that aim. However, all three failed and McCarthy has had had rather smaller sums to play with since he took charge in November 2012. In 2014/15 the Blues - now in their 16th season in the Championship - reached the play-offs for the first and only time since Evans took over. Asked whether the 54-year-old Town owner remains as committed to the Blues as he was when he took charge, McCarthy said: “He is, yes. I guess he’s not as committed to wasting money because fundamentally that’s what happened. “Has he said that to me? No, but I’m saying it to you. I came in here and I released three players who cost a whole chunk of money [probably Michael Chopra, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas and Paul Taylor] and didn’t really do a great deal for the club, certainly not while I was here. Marcus has never said that to me. “By the way, I’ve wasted a bit of money on free transfers as well, I’ve brought a few in who haven’t been particularly good. But that’s what you get. “But if you go out and spend big, and I think they were big at the time one or two of the transfers, and really supported the two managers prior to me in terms of money and funds. “He’s just not going to do that again, not to my knowledge, and I fully understand that. But he continues to support the academy, tries and build that, which we’ve done, we’ve got players coming through, Tristan and Flynn, [15-year-old England U16 international] Ben Knight down below and we’ve had Bish and we’ve had Dozzer. “So he continues to try and grow that, he tried to to get that to Category One. So in terms of his support for the club in general, it has been 100 per cent and his commitment is. “And his desire still to get promoted is. Just because somebody doesn’t throw hundreds of millions at it doesn’t mean to say the desire is not there.” Does McCarthy say to Evans that if he were given a few million more he would have a greater chance of winning that elusive promotion back to the top flight? “No, because a couple of million here, a couple of million there could work, but might not. Just check where a few of them are. “It’s not an exact science, is it? Check where a few of those teams are who have spent a chunk of money and are beneath us, now, and might end up beneath us. “As I said, it just isn’t an exact science, you just keep throwing money at it. Let’s throw some more, let’s throw some good after bad, and let’s continue to do that.” Presumably McCarthy would feel he would use any funds given to him more shrewdly than his predecessors at Town? “I’d like to think I would spend it wisely and well and get value for money. “Which I think pretty much wherever I’ve been I’ve done, I’ve had to do that. I wouldn’t know about anything else because nobody’s ever said to me, ‘Here’s a shedload, get on with it!’. “I get a lot of pleasure out of the fact that pretty much my dealings in the transfer market are considered and we’ve had pretty good success.” He says he has a very good working relationship with Evans: “Marcus has been great to work for. Everybody assumes or tries to put something at me that I should be in some way frustrated or annoyed or not quite as content or as happy as I have been over five years because there’s not been that much budget in terms of players. “But I knew the parameters when I took the job and I’ve always accepted that if you take a job you do the best you can with what is available to you. Not take the job and then whinge and kick and scream and throw your toys out of the pram. “So, I’ve done that and I’m happy with what I’ve done and I’m happy with the support he’s given me because it’s been an understanding and a moral support because Marcus understands that we haven’t got a budget like Middlesbrough have. “They’ve got £35 million worth of centre forwards. And I don’t know what Stewart Downing cost and what he’s getting paid. I’m just talking about three of them. “So we don’t do that. He has a good understanding of that and he understands and he appreciates that I’ve done a good job with how we do it.” He added: “So many people have said to me, ‘If only he’d stick some money in’ and I say, ‘He sticks five or six million quid a year in, every single year’. He’s put £100 million in apparently if the figures are right that we hear. “Wow, that’s some chunk of dough. I’m not bothered how much money you’ve got or haven’t got, that’s a lot of money. “[Evans’s approach] might not please everybody, it might not appease everybody, it might not make everybody happy. I’m sure it doesn’t make him happy actually, sticking in five or six million quid in either. “But he’s always there, always supportive, always enthusiastic about wanting to do better, and we continually strive to try to do that.” McCarthy says Evans is a more stable owner than those at plenty of other clubs where managers come and go with great frequency. “He is,” McCarthy continued. “I’ve said before when the furore comes out and [fans are chanting that] I should go, I don’t know what they think he’s going to replace me with. He’s not going to replace me with somebody and give them £20 million to spend. “He’s going to replace me with somebody else who is going to have the same parameters, same budget, same players. “Well, if that’s the case, he understands I’m doing a good job and appreciates that, as I’ve said. I understand that he’s not coming banging my door down saying, ‘Hey, by the way we ought to be finishing in the top two’ because that would be unrealistic. “And yet we still try to get into that top six and try and get promoted, and the lads I’ve got are brilliant.”
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