Town boss Mick McCarthy felt his side “probably deserved to win” their 2-2 home draw with Reading after a performance which was a vast improvement on Tuesday’s “unpalatable and unacceptable” display as the Blues were comprehensively beaten 3-0 by Derby County at Portman Road.

“It was certainly a really good, positive reaction from Tuesday night having been comfortably beaten,” McCarthy said.

“That performance was unpalatable and unacceptable and today’s was completely different.

“I made a few changes, I think the new faces have helped, they’ve certainly livened the place up and have given us all a bit more of a spark.

“I thought today’s performance was great and, I’m not one to see things through rose-coloured specs, I think we probably deserved to win it.

“But it’s sod’s law, a 35-yarder flew in the bottom corner. I thought we had good chances, it was a good performance all-round today.”

Town’s star man was once again Tom Lawrence, who took his total to 10 goals, eight in his last eight games, having scored eight of Town’s last nine goals.

“He has [been in top form],” McCarthy added. “I’ve said before, we’d have been up a very muddy river without a paddle if he hadn’t have been here, pretty much up ‘poo creek’ if he wasn’t here with his goals.

“I love the fact our fans are singing ‘Sign him on, sign him on’, which would be lovely, we all want that.

“There was interest in him in the window, but he wants to play in the Premier League and I think that’s where his future will be because he’s such a good player.

“He’s got really good attributes over and above just being a good player, he’s tough, he works hard, he’s very, very good.

“I just whispered to Tom on the way out there, I just said ‘I don’t think you have to worry about your future, Tom. I think it’s pretty bright, mate! You’ll be fine'.”

The Welshman, who is on loan with the Blues for the season from Leicester, was hobbling at one point and McCarthy admits he was concerned whether he would be OK to be involved after the break.

“He got a really nasty kick on his instep,” he added. “He’d got a big lump like an egg on his instep, he had ice on it at half-time. I was concerned that he might not come out but he did and he got his second goal.

“He said he was all right, it was sore, he got a really nasty bump on it and bruise on it, but he never gave any indication he wasn’t going to come out, he’s pretty tough, Tom.”

McCarthy felt Lawrence and David McGoldrick combined well: “I thought they were a good pairing up front today. They both worked very, very hard. Tom’s got his goals but I thought Didzy was a really good partner for him.”

While the Blues may not have signed made the signing of the experienced striker to replace Daryl Murphy in the transfer window, McCarthy made seven additions during the window and new loanees Toumani Diagouraga and Emyr Huws and Steven Taylor, who signed short-term deal, all made an impact.

“Not everything turned to gold in terms of what we’re trying to do,” he admitted. “But what’s been nice is the ones that have come in and made an impact. It doesn’t matter where they’ve come from or how much they’ve cost, they want to be here.

“Whether it’s starting out on a career in pro football like Danny Rowe or coming to resurrect a career and get it going again like Toums or Emyr Huws, who I thought we excellent, the pair of them. It doesn’t matter, they want to be here and they’ve given the place a lift.”

He added: “I thought Emyr was excellent today, it’s just kind of sad that it’s the three loan players that have ripped it up for us.

“I thought Tom did, I thought Toums was excellent, I thought Emyr was. Steven Taylor as well was very good, although he’s not a loan player.

“I thought they were good, I took a bit of a risk with them because they’ve not played a lot of games and they’d probably run out of gas, which was why we’ve had to put the two lads on at the end. But the contribution was very good.”

Is there a provision in those loan deals for the moves to potentially become permanent moves in the summer?

“No, there’s not,” the Town boss added. “The thing that’s in the loan deals is whether they come here and they like it, they love it enough to want to come and the other clubs don’t love them enough that they want to get shot of them. That’s generally the case.

“We’ve got to capture their hearts and minds a little bit that they want to be here. Good performances today and we need some more of them.”

Regarding Huws taking a pay cut to join the Blues, McCarthy added: “When I spoke to his agent, who I’ve known a long time, he’d said to him ‘It’s not about the money, I want to go and play’. And I think he was very good today.”

Centre-half Taylor made one remarkable header past his own post as he defended a cross in from the left, which impressed his boss.

“I think if I was on the Reading bench I’d have said ‘Lucky f***er!’,” McCarthy laughed. “But bearing in mind I was on our bench I went ‘What a great header’. It was fantastic!

“It was great defending but that’s one of them, how he contrived to get it past the far post and not in the side-netting is unbelievable. But I think we deserved that, but he stuck himself in there.

“I thought he played well, Steven. He made a big difference. I love Diggers because of his enthusiasm and he wants to play but we’re talking about a lad who has played in the Premier League for a long time, 10 years probably, and been in England squads.

“We’re comparing apples and pears there, one youthful wanting to do well and the other probably hasn’t got the legs that Diggers have got, but in that position you use your head, you use your mouth, you use your experience and you organise things. He’s a good defender.”

Having said Portman Road has recently been an unpleasant place to be, McCarthy had praise for fans, who he felt played their part from start to finish.

“I’ve said all along, it’s only us that can make it a pleasant place with our performances,” he said. “I’ll take losing if we play like that, I can tolerate losing. I don’t want to, of course.

“But if we play as well as that and get beat, you’d think there are some positives and you can move forward with performances like that [rather than] the other night getting so comfortably beaten.

“The fans were great, they reacted and responded to a good performance and it was lovely. But I thought they were good from the very start, form me walking up the track, it was nice. Nice support from them.”

McCarthy now wants his side to kick on and put in a consistent run of form: “If the rest of the season is anything to go by we’ll be hopeless at Villa and we’ll get beat!

“Let’s hope that’s not the case. I don’t think so, I think the competition for places is far better and maybe a little bit of insecurity makes you work hard, people can’t rest on their laurels.

“I’m not saying they were, but we had 12 or 13 players at one stage and a lot of kids on the bench. It looks a lot stronger now.”

McCarthy said Cole Skuse suffered an achilles injury and he’ll know more about the seriousness of the problem tomorrow.

Royals manager Jaap Stam said: “It was entertaining, but you’re not always very confident on the touchline in these types of games.

“It was going to be a tough game with how they play. We knew how they play at home, the effort that they put in, especially in the second half.

“They know how we want to play, playing possession and they don’t want to let us play, so there’s a lot of physicality in their team, a lot of battles in the midfield and up front for us as well with their defence, and that made it very difficult for us to play.

“They did well, they worked very hard for it but the only thing is for me if you look at the game and how we played and how we conceded goals, that’s my main frustration because they scored twice by us losing the ball twice.

“Once when we were on the attack around the box we lost it, the pass wasn’t good enough and on the break, they’re out. Of course, they did it very well, they scored a great goal, but it was our own mistake that cost.

“The second goal that we conceded, again on the right side. We were still wanting that ball, wanting to play the ball into the striker under pressure, we were still standing open at the back giving space away. They win it, one pass straight through the middle, they’re gone, scoring the second goal.

“That makes it hard because every time you need to come back into the game, you need to equalise twice, which is not easy against a side like this, but we did it, so it’s good, it’s an important point for us.

“That was basically it, we didn’t deserve more today from how we played, I think a draw was a good result for both teams.”

Photo: TWTD

Michael11 added 11:53 - Feb 6 We're a lot better without Skuse in my opinion. Much slicker and faster when he went off. I still genuinely don't see the big fuss about him being important at all.
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woohoo added 12:16 - Feb 6 Was there and enjoyed watching some really good football played by Town. Made a change from some of the dross that we have seen earlier in the season and you could sense that the crowd were happy and surprised to see the ball being passed around quickly. If Lawrence had have kept going rather than passing to McGoldrick we would have won.
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Gcon added 14:59 - Feb 6 Cat - Indeed. Let's move on
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blueboy1981 added 18:38 - Feb 6 With us showing, and playing, with a bit of FLAIR and CREATIVITY for once Mick - I'll bet the first thing you did after the game, was change your pants. Let's have more of the same even if he has to change them at half time as well.
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blueboy1981 added 18:41 - Feb 6 ........ Huws and Dia .... made all the difference - they played their game the way they knew they should - and it rubbed off on all around them. Hence the good game we saw.
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