Ipswich v Millwall: Blues boss Mick McCarthy heaped praise on David McGoldrick and Tyrone Mings after the pair – both the subject of rejected bids from Premier League clubs leading up to the transfer window closing – played crucial roles in a 2-0 home win over Millwall.

Leicester City had an £7m+ offer for striker McGoldrick knocked back, while Crystal Palace had a surprise £2.5m bid for left-back Mings rejected little under a fortnight ago. Neither showed any signs of losing focus or motivation this afternoon, however, McGoldrick scoring Town’s crucial opener in first half stoppage-time and Mings a contender for man-of-the-match with his attacking threat from left-back.

“He was different class Tyrone,” said McCarthy. “I’d had a nip at his ears about being safe, well he wasn’t safe today was he? He was rampaging up and down. Their full-backs are particularly good at doing that and I’d said to ours I wanted them to be better at it. Ty was the pick of the bunch I thought.”

On McGoldrick, he said: “He’s another one that played properly, despite the disappointment. I keep being asked ‘how he is he?’ Well he’s been great, he’s trained really well and that’s proved it today – he was excellent again.”

Town ended a five-game winless streak, which had started following their 2-1 win over Fulham on the opening weekend of the campaign, with Millwall suffering a league defeat for only the fifth time in 18 outings.

McCarthy said: “It was a very good win against a good team. We got away with one when they hit the crossbar (in the ninth minute). Somebody just asked me ‘why did you start slow?’ I don’t think we did, they were just good. But we grew into the game, got the goal and I thought second half we were by far the better team.

“I’m not so sure there’s ever a bad time to score, but it certainly changed the dynamic of the dressing room. I wasn’t displeased with how we were going about things, but I was certainly a lot happier after the goal.

“I’m sure Ollie was livid because they were the better team in the first half. Certainly for the first half hour.”

Having dropped Tommy Smith and Luke Hyam in order to play Jonathan Parr and Tyrone Mings in the full-back positions and Cole Skuse alongside Teddy Bishop in central midfield, McCarthy continued: “Because their two full-backs do like to rampage forwards we thought there was a chance to catch them on the break, we trained accordingly this week and we did actually catch them on the break because we’ve speared them from their corner kick (Daryl Murphy scoring the killer second in the 63rd minute).

“Ollie’s teams are very attack-minded, they can be left a bit bare at the back.

“I was livid at half-time with our corner kicks because if you keep chipping them into the keeper’s hands you can’t score from them. It wasn’t a great corner kick, but it didn’t go into the keeper’s hands and strangely enough we scored of fit.”

On his decision to drop Smith and Hyam to the bench, he said: “It was a difficult decision, but I wanted Tyrone at left-back and I wanted a rampaging right-back as well. I also wanted a right-footed centre-back (Luke Chambers) and a left-footed centre-back (Christophe Berra). Unfortunately it was Tommy who missed out. Sometimes you can’t give rhyme or reason for doing something, other than ‘it’s what I wanted to do’.

“It’s been hard to upset a back four that has been as good as ours has.”

– See Monday’s EADT and Ipswich Star for McCarthy’s thoughts on an impressive Teddy Bishop.