McCarthy – Missed Opportunities

Manager Mick McCarthy has said that Ipswich let Watford off the hook today, and the turning point in the game came when Luke Hyam hit the bar.

Ipswich conceded the opening goal of the game in the first half, but within five minutes of the restart Anthony Wordsworth had got us back on level terms and att hat point it looked like we would go on and take all three points in the match, but unfortunately the manager feels that when Hyam’s header hit the woodwork, the game got away from us again and obviously Watford went on to score twice in the space of three minutes to consign us to defeat.

Speaking to the Official Site following the game, the gaffer explained.

‘They were game changing moments. We could have been ahead when we’ve hit the bar. That has probably saved the game for them and then five minutes later we are 3-1 down. It was poor marking for the second. A good delivery, a good run and a good header, but we shouldn’t have allowed him to get a head on it. Up until then I was delighted with our performance. For an hour we were the better team and we have let them off the hook.’

McCarthy goes on to say that the biggest disappointment really, in terms of the play off push, is that results yesterday did actually got for us, so if we had made this game count we’d have been in a fantastic position heading into the final few games of the season, so not only did we conspire to let Watford off the hook in this game, we have let others off the hook who could’ve done us a favour yesterday had we secured the win.

‘It’s a missed opportunity so I’m very disappointed with the result, but not with the performance.’

The goal scorer on the day, Wordsworth also echoed the gaffer and said that everybody was frustrated in the dressing room at full time.

‘It’s disappointing not to have taken anything from the game because I think we had some good chances. We started the second half brightly and got back on level terms and we were pushing for a second. We’ve switched off and they’ve scored two quick goals.’

Wordsworth says he and the team definitely feel their two goals came against the run of play, but it’s their own fault really and we were punished for it.

‘We’re all frustrated but we are still right in the mix and it’s exciting to be in a play off chase. We’ve got a huge game on Monday and hopefully we will be able to put this result behind us by picking up a win.’

We simply have to win now, as victory today would’ve taken us into the top six and the play offs would’ve been in our hands, but now again we have to get a maximum return and then hope somebody else slips up again to let us back into a stronger position.