Mick McCarthy’s strength is also his weakness. His brutal frankness means that some players excel and others fall by the wayside disillusioned and disenfranchised.
It is a manager`s worst dream that a player that he off-loads to another club goes on to better things and yet it seems to happen an awful lot these days.
Paul Taylor at Rotherham is a good example. Under Mick McCarthy he struggled to get into the team and yet now he is an ever present and excelling with The Millers so why did he fail so miserably with Town? His abject failure with Ipswich has worked in the Yorkshire clubs favour and since he went there he has returned to the kind of form that got him rave reviews with Peterborough so why is this?
The same could be said to a lesser extent about Anthony Wordsworth, who started at Rotherham in dire need of a confidence boost, according to manager Steve Evans. Since then however, he has gone from strength to strength and Evans described his performance in midweek against Bolton as terrific! Yes, they lost the game but only due to goalkeeping errors and against a side that is still fancied to get close to the promotion places this season.
Mick McCarthy is as honest as they come. He is as direct as any Yorkshire man I have ever met and is brutally frank about his team and his players. These are of course admirable qualities that all successful managers have in their armoury but there is a down side. If your face does not fit then it is off to pastures new. It could be argued that this is good for the player too because who wants to be condemned to a life on the bench or worst still in the reserves?
Subjectivity however is unavoidable and Mick has his favourites of this there is no doubt and when they play poorly he will not drop them until he has no choice in the matter.
Frank Noble is a young player that probably needs an arm around his shoulders more than most and since he was sent to Coventry he has rekindled his form of old with three strikes in just four games! If only he could have done that at Town I hear you say!
At the end of the day though, it is the manager who decides and as we sit in tenth place in the table and having won our last two encounters perhaps this is not the best time to be too critical of our boss. So far so good I guess and long may this continue!
F.W.
