Cardiff slump leaves Mick ‘sick’ while Irish Canary catches the eye again

MICK McCARTHY admits that his Cardiff City side have no one else to blame for the end of their promotion play-off hopes.

Cardiff looked capable of a promotion push after a revival under new boss McCarthy led to a run of seven wins and a draw in eight games, but after three successive matches without a win, City now have no chance of making the play-offs, and the former Ireland boss claimed his side were “sick” after Blackburn scored late to earn a 2-2 draw on Saturday.

“I’ve not done the last three results on purpose to quell any talk of the play-offs, you can rest assured that’s not the case,” he said. “Whether we won all our games or not, the other teams are capable of winning theirs. All we can do is look after our games and performances and results.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t,” added McCarthy. “The next five games, we want to win them and get points, but we will have an eye on what’s been happening next season.”

While Cardiff resign themselves to the loss of a play-off place, Norwich City are just two points away from securing automatic promotion.

Impressive

Irish teenager Andrew Omobamidele came in for praise from manager Daniel Farke after another impressive display from the defender in a weekend win over Derby, a third successive league start and second clean sheet in a row for the 18-year-old.

And Farke believes that young players like Leixlip United product Omobamidele will benefit from playing now as the pressure is off, promotion all but guaranteed.

“We have some strong sides to play and we are still a young side. If I think about Andrew Omobamidele, who has been fantastic but he is making the right first steps. I think the pressure is away now,” Farke said after the win over a Derby side who gave a league debut to Tallaght teenager Festy Ebosele.

“My gut feeling is we will now celebrate promotion at the end of the season. But it’s not completely over the line so we can’t fully relax.”

Meanwhile, Dubliner Warren O’Hora has suffered a major blow as he will miss the rest of the season with League One side MK Dons. The ex-Bohemians man had made a big impression, initially on loan from Brighton in a deal which became permanent in January.

But boss Russell Martin has been forced to admit defeat in a bid to get O’Hora (21) back to full fitness after a previous injury was made worse during training last week.

“We’ll do well to get him back before the end of the season. It’s been a persistent one which has been managed well, but he just can’t keep going on,” said Martin.