MICK: MY CRITICS CAN ‘CRACK ON’
Winless run ends at Owls’ expense
IPSWICH manager Mick McCarthy was in defiant mood after his side claimed a deserved three points over play-off chasing Sheffield Wednesday.
McCarthy had been under fire from some quarters as only an equaliser at the death earned them a 2-2 draw with bottom club Rotherham last time out, but there was plenty in this excellent away performance to justify his unerring confidence.
Responding to a question from a local journalist, McCarthy said: “If you or anyone else want to judge me, crack on.
“But that performance and that result reflects my time at Ipswich, my four years and 201 games, far more than performances I choose to carp on about.
“That is more like my team, that’s more how I’ve been, than ever, along with some other performances like Brentford away, Leeds away. That reflects me far more, so, it was a nice result.”
He added: “I thought it was a good display by virtually the team that played last week. I’m very pleased with the performance and even happier still with the result.
“I’ve no worry about my ability or my confidence in the players, and they’ve backed that up with a really good performance.
“We hadn’t had a win in eight and it doesn’t get any easier under those circumstances, but I thought we were excellent.”
Wednesday were largely uninspiring in attack and threatened only once before Ipswich took the lead, with Steven Fletcher heading David Jones’ corner over the bar.
The visitors established a short-lived lead when Tom Lawrence dispossessed Jack Hunt near the halfway line and charged through on goal before finding the bottom corner.
The Owls were back level four minutes later after Bartosz Bialkowski spilled Jones’ shot at the feet of an otherwise poor Gary Hooper four yards out.
Bialkowski parried another shot towards danger when he palmed away Hooper’s shot straight after the break, but the superb Adam Webster got back to clear just in time to deny Kieran Lee.
Nine minutes later Hunt found Fletcher in a good posi- tion inside the box, but his cross was slightly too high for the Scotland striker,
Ipswich’s counter-attacking game became increasingly threatening as the game wore on, and substitute Jonathan Williams forced Owls defender Tom Lees to make a last-ditch interception from Grant Ward’s cross six minutes from time.
Town then scored a late goal against South Yorkshire opposition for the second game in a row: Ward crossed a free-kick towards Christophe Berra, whose powerful, but wayward, header cannoned off Luke Chambers – who either showed incredible reactions or knew nothing about it – and into the net.
Wednesday boss Carlos Carvalhal admitted: “We didn’t perform at our level.
“I hope this game will be an exception because we were playing very, very well in the last seven or eight games.
“We started well in the first minutes of the second half but really we didn’t act like a real threat to Ipswich.
“We didn’t deserve to win the game but we didn’t deserve to lose either. We have the same points as this moment last season. Of course we expected more, but other teams are losing points also.”