Is Mick McCarthy Only As Good As His Tools?

I think I finally get it! It is all about the money all about the dum dum dum a dum dum…

Well not quite but some of it is. I mean, whatever we think of Mick McCarthy as a manager, he has been dealt a pretty poor hand.

Before him, owner Marcus Evans ploughed lots of cash into the transfer budget so that Roy Keane and Paul Jewell could spend it with gay abandon but it did not help us reach the promised land – no matter who they bought or who they sought.

Understandably, not knowing a lot about football and the common man, Marcus Evans was advised to change strategy and go for someone who could cut his cloth according to his needs and in marched Mick McCarthy, the perfect fit to fill that gaping hole and there is nothing like a Yorkshireman when it comes to spending shrewdly and counting those little pennies.

Mick McCarthy has come in for a lot of criticism over the last few months but we must not forget what he did for the club in those dark days, when relegation loomed much more menacingly than now.

He did the football impossible and hauled us by our bootlaces back from the brink and although he likes to remind us of it, we should nevertheless never forget it either.

Limited resources are not the manager’s fault. On the contrary, he is the man that is prepared to take what has been given and soldier on regardless. In fact, some might say he revels in this state of adversity!

To a man like Mick McCarthy there is no greater motivation than to prove his doubters wrong. He has never once criticised the owner for not giving him more spending power and he is never jealous of a manager that has inherited so much more than him.

As he explains, Steve Bruce may have got some dosh to spend but that is his problem to deal with because he can either spend it wisely or recklessly and perhaps it is better not to have too much of it in the first place?

“It`s his job, it`s not mine. I`ve managed to do as well as I can with what I have where I am, it`s at Ipswich at the moment.’

That is the talk of someone who is losing faith with the locals and it suggests to me that he thinks he can never redeem himself to the fans.

I am not convinced because after the magnificent display by the under 23 team in their 8-0 drubbing of Watford and Town’s creditable 2-2 draw at home to Reading, I still believe there is hope because finally we have a strong squad.

And out of that hope Mick McCarthy may still be able to say, at the end of the day, that he told us so…




Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich