McCarthy: A Strange Feeling Saturday, 31st Mar 2018 18:37 Town boss Mick McCarthy admitted it was a “strange feeling” taking charge of the Blues during the 1-0 defeat at Birmingham City having announced that he will be leaving the club in the summer earlier in the week. Reflecting on the match itself, which was won by a contentious 21st minute penalty netted by Jota after referee Roger East adjudged that Cameron Carter-Vickers has fouled Jacques Maghoma, he said: “I thought we’d just started to get into the game. I thought it was a good piece of play when we got the cross in. “To be fair, their keeper catches it and throws it out but we should have confronted him in their half and fouled him in their half, and not let him get into our penalty area. “I haven’t seen it again, somebody just asked me if I thought it was a penalty. Cam says he barely touched him but he should have barely touched him over the halfway line and there’d be no argument, would there? If you allow them to get in the box you’re in danger of giving a penalty away.” Asked how he found the match two days on from the announcement of his exit, he reflected: “Just surreal really, just a strange feeling. We’ve done everything as we would normally do, me and TC jumping up and down like a couple of mad men and screaming and shouting, encouraging, cajoling, bollocking, organising. “There’s been no difference at all, except there has. There just has. Just the feeling. "All the chat is about me but I think people forget that TC, who has done a great job here, is out of work at the end of May. “I think that’s a little bit unfair with the work and job and coaching he does. So that’s sad and I just said to him ‘How do you feel?’ and he says he said ‘I don’t know’. “It’s brand new, how do you expect to feel? I’ve not experienced it before. All these 26 years’ experience as a manager I’ve experienced something else now.” He says he can’t really put into words quite what’s changed: “I want to be as bothered as I always am and I’ve wanted to win that game. You’ve seen me on the sidelines with TC, but there’s something that’s gone, certainly, for sure. I wish I could articulate it better but I a football player, coach, manager not a poet. “But not quite feeling the same doesn’t equate to not doing the job properly. You have to understand. Sometimes you might get up not feeling great, might have flu, but you still come out and do the job properly. “That’s the same, it’s just an odd feeling. I’ve never had it. But you’ve all watched that game. The lads have played well, certainly in the second half there was a good response, me and TC are doing exactly the same thing. I’ve come in here and been exactly the same and that’s the way I’ll be because it’s my job.” He says there’s been no change in his relationship with the players: “None at all, we’ve got a huge respect for each other. You’ve watched the game today, I think that’s a bit of a question which has been answered by them on the pitch. “Ask them, they’re disappointed, they’re a little bit shell-shocked. There are players who are looking for contracts, there are players who are on loan, there are players who are on loan. “There are players who are wondering next season what’s going to happen, somebody might come in and not fancy them. That does put a real element in doubt in their heads. “If there’s been one constant over the last five, nearly six, years it’s been me and TC and we’ve done the same things and they know what to expect. It’s into the unknown for them now.” Asked whether he plans to take a break when he leaves the Blues at the end of the season in May, he added: “I’m not in a position where I’ve been losing loads of games. I was going to say or was getting abuse from everywhere, but I am getting a fair bit. “But it’s not like I’m thinking, ‘Wow, we’re getting battered a bruised and we’re in a relegation fight and I should be leaving and have a rest’. No, not at all. I’m ready to go. “It’s quite the opposite, it’s unusual that a manager comes in and announces his job’s going, isn’t it? It doesn’t happen too often. It’s usually a club website that announces the manager’s gone and nobody sees him again.’ Regarding the timing, he said: “It had to be done. A note went about it being done before the season ticket sales. That’s not right. I needed to know for my own sanity and my own good what was going to happen. But I’ve discussed how it happened and why it happened, that’s all old hat. “But we’re not going up, we’re not going down. Maybe it should have been done in the international break and somebody else could have come and done the eight games, maybe that would have inspired everybody a bit more. “But when I spoke to Marcus it was never in doubt that I’d do them. But it is an unusual situation. It’s maybe happened before, certainly maybe in the Premier League, other managers know they’re leaving. But I’ve never experienced it either as a player or as a manager so I don’t know what to expect. “When I’m barking at the lads, ‘You’re being like a baby, play properly, put your foot in, do this…’. I don’t know. I don’t know how they’re feeling. “I said the other day I might be barking at them on the training ground and they might say, ‘Piss off gaffer, do me a favour, you’re not going to be around next year!’. “I said, ‘If you do I’m going to be rolling round on the turf with you, by the way, because I am still the manager’. “And they are still respecting everything I’ve said and I still respect them immensely because they’ve given me everything. “Some of them have been here ever since I’ve been here and so it is important that myself and TC, and I do believe we’re good workers and good professionals, that we keep doing it the right way until they get another manager.” He added: “During the game I’m not thinking, ‘What am I going to be doing’ or ‘What’s TC going to be doing?’. There was none of that at all, there was a complete focus and competitive edge on the game. “You must have seen that because in the second half we were doing all the pushing and we tried and the lads responded really well.” Quizzed on whether there was any doubt that he would see out the final eight games, he reiterated: “My contract’s running out. And, of course, there was that slight little notion that we won all eight games and got in the play-offs I’d have another year to go. “That would have pissed everybody off, wouldn’t it? Can you imagine that when I come back next season, ‘Surprise!’. ‘Oh no!’. Anyway, it’s not looking like that will happen now.” Asked about injury problems and key players being out, he responded: “Everybody gets it, it’s not only us. I think in the bigger scheme of things we’ve just had a bit of a dip towards the end but we’ve had a good season. “Where we are, where we finish, let’s see in terms of budgets and where we all are. It’s looking to me like it’s started to pan out, Wolves have spent probably the most, Burton have probably spent the least. “I looked at us and we were middle of the table in goals against, goals for, lots of things we were just middle and I thought that’s probably where we are. And if we finish up any higher than that we’ll have done really well.” Despite his impending departure, McCarthy says he is in no doubt that he will carry on in management for a long while to come yet. “Neil Warnock’s got nine years on me. I’m happy to do it for that long, I’ve no desire to pack it in at all, I’m enjoying it,” he insisted. “I’ll still be enjoying it when I go to the training ground this week as well. I’ve no desire to pack it in, me and the missus would kill each other if I do anyway.” Birmingham boss Garry Monk waas pleased with the way his team prevented the Blues from being able to get back into the match. “I thought we managed the game really, really well today," he said. "I thought in the first half especially we looked very dangerous on the counter-attack and probably could have done a little bit better with some of those situations. “We looked aggressive and bright and then in the second half, as you’d expect, Ipswich, they don’t carry that pressure that we carry and they’re 1-0 down, so they’re going to come at you. “But I thought we managed the game really well in the second half. We didn’t really let them create any really clear-cut opportunities, but what they did have in terms of pressure or situations we defended really well, stoutly, showed our spirit and fight, and we dug in when we needed to. You need a team to have those attributes in these tougher situations. “I was pleased with the players today in terms of how they managed the game and obviously the three points is the most important thing.”
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