Ipswich Town boss Mick McCarthy hopes tonight’s impressive performance at Wolves, in a 0-0 draw, will stop the fans ‘fearing’ Sunday’s East Anglian derby against Norwich City at Portman Road.

There was a fair amount of doom and gloom following last Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Brentford, but the Blues were by far the better team at Molineux and controversially had a Daryl Murphy goal chalked off.

“I could go through all of them really, I thought we played really well as a team,” enthused McCarthy. “We did the dirty stuff really well, but it was also a really good football performance too.

“We needed something after losing the last one. We had a reasonable first half against Barnsley and then played great in the second half, we played well in the first half at Brentford, but then, unfortunately, people are very quick to get down after one bad half of football.

“I sensed from the supporters a bit of fear. I hear them saying on Saturday ‘we can’t play like that against Norwich’. But that wasn’t us in the second half (at Brentford).

“It’s like they are excited about the game, but there’s an element of fear about losing it. That’s the same in all derby matches – Wolves versus West Brom, or Man U v Man City, Celtic v Rangers. They are great games to be part of, you just don’t want to lose them. And I get that.

“At least this was a performance we can go into Sunday’s game to be proud of and to think ‘that’s how we do play’.”

With Murphy’s header from a corner bizarrely ruled out, McCarthy said: “Freddie stood in front of the goalkeeper, admittedly, but it’s flown past them both. He’s not tried to do anything to it.

“I’m not even convinced he’s in an offside either because the defender was level. I’m bloody annoyed at that, never mind disappointed. The officials finally came to a conclusion and got their stories straight.”

With Bartosz Bialkowski saving a penalty and making a fine second half stop to continue his rich vein of form, McCarthy added: “He’s an outstanding goalkeeper isn’t he? He’s proved it again. We’ve got two outstanding goalkeepers and it’s always sad when one of them is out, but he (Dean Gerken) keeps Bart on his toes.”

– Match report and ratings – Pages 66/67