Will Mick McCarthy Stay Or Will He Go?

When pressed by Stuart Watson of the East Anglian Daily Times on where his future lies, manager Mick McCarthy was as cagey as ever but indicated that striker David McGoldrick and he could walk out of the ‘golden gates’ together!

Watson quizzed him further and asked did he want to stay at Ipswich Town or leave? Now McCarthy was on the spot but was not prepared to air his long term future in public.

‘You will find out, won`t you, at some stage. But other than that, I`m not prepared to say anything else.’

In fairness to Watson, now that the ball was rolling he was not going to be content with that kind of tame reply and like a fearless rottweiler, bravely went where no other journalist had gone before by asking whether McCarthy had spoken to owner Marcus Evans about his future or not?

‘ No – because we have Wolves to play tomorrow and it`s a big game for us. If we beat them we will be back on the back of the play-offs,’ Mick replied.

But Watson, to his credit, kept trying to get a definitive answer from the manager and continued – almost in a Jeremy Paxman sort of way, to find out what was inside Mick’s inner-thoughts and asked defiantly, ‘It`s not just us in this room who are wanting to know, it`s the wider fan base who want to know what your future is?’

McCarthy remained as stubborn as ever on the subject and retorted, ‘But you`re going to tell them. You are going to tell them you see and it`s not me who breaks confidences, it`s the people I tell.’

Watson tried one final time to get some daylight on this topic by asking McCarthy whether the fans need to forget all about the speculation about his job as manager, and concentrate instead, on that game tomorrow at Portman Road against Wolves?

McCarthy responded confidently and yet dispassionately saying, ‘If we win tomorrow there will be a great atmosphere and we`ll all get applauded off. If we don`t, if we get beat, it will be completely the opposite and I might be being told where to go anyway by a lot of them. That`s just the way it is and I can`t affect that in any other way than getting my team to be well organised, play well and hopefully win. And that`s for all our benefits. The players, the club, me and the fans.’

So then, although Watson sensed that there may be a way of discovering more about the future of our under siege boss, he as usual gave very little away. But there was enough details in his replies to suggest that he is on the edge of a decision and it could just be that this decision has already been made?

Perhaps the result tomorrow might tell us more than any interview could about the future of Ipswich Town football under the stewardship of Mick McCarthy? Win lose or draw we may probably know a bit more.


Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich