Fri Mar 11, 2016 6:34 am
McCarthy: Great to Have Murph and Skusey Back
Boss Mick McCarthy is delighted that key pair Daryl Murphy and Cole Skuse should be back from their injuries for Saturday’s game away against fellow play-off challengers Cardiff City.
Skuse has missed the last five games with a toe ligament injury, while Murphy has been sidelined for two matches with a calf problem, but the Blues manager expects them both to be OK to face the Bluebirds, who are seventh, one place above Town - who have a game in hand - on goal difference alone.
“It’s great to be able to call on Cole Skuse and Daryl Murphy,” McCarthy said. “They’ve been virtually ever present in the team, they’re two very, very good players for us.
“If they are available, which I think they will be, they should train with us on Friday, then that’ll be a real bonus for all of us.
“No disrespect to anybody else because they’ve been picked on merit, week in, week out for the last two or three seasons. And if they’re fit, they’d expect to play.”
He says the pair won’t have lost too much fitness due to their time out and says it may actually benefit them in the final weeks of the season.
“At this stage, the lads keep themselves really well and if they’re injured they’re not just injured and not doing anything, they’ve been doing their rehab,” he added.
“I would say Skusey has got as fit as anybody and has endurance in him, and so does Murph.
“In a strange way it might be that a break gives them a chance to finish the season on a high and full of running. Let’s hope it does.”
Given the two lengthy trips this week and then the back-to-back home games against Blackburn and Rotherham, McCarthy says he’ll be looking to freshen up his side.
“Yes, absolutely. It’s not been easy because we’ve had so many injuries but we’ve got three games in quick succession on the back of a bonkers long trip to Bolton and back.
“We were back here at 10 to four and we’ve got a similar trip now to Cardiff. If I can get fresh legs in the team I will.”
McCarthy says on-loan Arsenal youngster Ainsley Maitland-Niles is fine, despite conceding the late, late penalty which saw the Blues drop two points at Bolton.
“He seems all right this morning, he’s trained fine,” the Blues boss added. “There are no recriminations from any of us because we’ve all made mistakes, me more than anybody because I’m older than all of them, so I’ve made a lot more than they have. And they, we have just got to get on with it.
“My philosophical view of it, the older I get, is that if I’d been asked before we went to Huddersfield, ‘Mick, would you take being one point off the play-offs with a game in hand after the Bolton game but you’ll concede a 96th minute equaliser to a penalty’, would I have taken it? Damn right I’d have taken it.
“And that’s where we are. I look at the last three games, we could have lost all those three.