MANAGER’S REACTION: Ipswich Town boss Mick McCarthy labels 6-0 thrashing at Leicester City as ‘embarrassing’ and ‘humiliating’

Leicester v Ipswich: IPSWICH Town manager Mick McCarthy admits his side’s 6-0 thrashing at Leicester City was ‘embarrassing’ and ‘humiliating’

Blues nemesis David Nugent took his goal tally against the club to 11 from 11 with an early double, while the Lloyd Dyer and Anthony Knockaert made it 4-0 before half-time.

Just like in the 5-0 defeat at Crystal Palace earlier this month, Town were cut open at will by a pacey and innovative attack. And it was case of how many the hosts would win by as Martyn Waghorn and Marcos Futacs netted amid a part atmosphere at The King Power Stadium.

The third time in little over a year that Town have lost by a six-goal margin on their travels (7-1 at Peterborough and 6-0 at Blackpool), Ipswich now have a minus 25 goal difference after just 17 Championship games.

“If you want to put awful and abject and p***-poor then I’m quite happy with that,” said McCarthy, when asked for his reaction.

“We talked about being hard-to-beat and not giving anything stupid away, but we’re timid at the minute. I don’t know if it’s a case of getting used to being beat, but that mentality can develop. You lose one goal and then another. The manner of the goals we conceded today was so poor.

“When it is a little bit brittle – which it is at the moment, everyone feels that way – you can almost see the playyers thinking ‘here we go again’. We’ve got to get rid of that.

“I’d have taken six points from the opening four games. Did we expect to beat Crystal Palace and Leicester? Probably not. But I expected us to play better. I don’t expect my sides to be humiliated the way they were today.

“The penalty (opening goal) should have been cleared (by Danny Higginbotham), the second sees a runner from midfield not picked up – it’s embarrassing actually.”

He continued: “It does hurt me, of course. I take pride in my teams being organised, hard-to-beat, tough, resolute. My two Championship winning sides will prove I like good football too, but we’ve got to sort the aforementioned out first though.”

Ipswich are now among five teams who are seven points adrift at the foot of the Championship table. McCarthy added: “We could be in-and-out of that bottom three all season. I can’t do anything about this one now, we’ll look at it on Monday, pick the bones out of it and then prepare for the game against Peterborough (at Portman Road on Saturday).

“We have to try and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

– See Monday’s EADT for more reaction.