Match Day: Mick McCarthy on Cardiff City V Sunderland AFC

Last updated : 13 December 2004 By John Jenkin
Mick McCarthy
Winning again!

"Both strikes were worthy of winning any game.

I thought it was a game that if we have aspirations of being in the shake-up for the Premier League, we should win.

The defeat against West Ham was by default, really. We went down to 10 men and were picked off by a good West Ham side.

The result pleased me but I don't think we played as well as we can. Certainly in the first half, there was not too much entertainment on the park.

We're away from home, we've not been at our best and we've still managed to win - that pleases me.

I signed them [Whitehead and Lawrence] to play in the team and they've been everything that I expected.

Deano's not had his best day today. He was full of cold and complained of it at half-time.

He was not feeling at his best, and I had told Sean Thornton to warm up just before Dean scored. Sean was the quickest bloke to sit down when the goal went in!

He [Whitehead] hit one in training yesterday morning exactly the same, so I knew he was capable of it.

I don't think any team in this division is that much better than anyone else. Perhaps we just had that bit of quality and a bit of luck at times.

I thought it was important to try and freshen it up up front. As it happens, we've scored two goals and neither centre-forward has been involved.

It doesn't concern me if the strikers aren't scoring as long as we are winning games and I keep saying that to them.

They all contribute and they all do their job well. We don't have to rely on the front two to get the goals.

I think the players have been exceptional after the first few games. It was a new team coming together and we've put together some good results - on our travels as well.

Perhaps last year we let ourselves down a bit away from home and we ended up finishing third. We came here and got slapped last year, 4-0, so it's a nice turnaround.

We've been on a great run; we've been playing very well and we were confident coming here. We didn't allow Cardiff to play."