MICK McCarthy has branded Ipswich’s victory over Burton Albion on Friday night a “huge win” after the Tractor Boys moved past the 50-point-mark for this campaign.
A Luke Varney own-goal and a strike from Freddie Sears secured the win for Ipswich, despite a late penalty from Lucas Akins halving the deficit for the Brewers in a late onslaught.
McCarthy’s side moved on to 52 points with the win, with 50 points generally considered to be the required amount for survival in the Championship.
The former Republic of Ireland manager praised his side for their victory but feels that they earned it the hard way.
“It is a huge win, it was a good performance by us and an even better result,” the former Wolves boss said.
“As ever, we do it the hard way, give a penalty away and they [Burton] hit the crossbar and it looks like all and sundry is going on, but it just keeps my heart racing.
“We played 4-3-3 to match them up, I knew that they would be playing 4-3-3 at home and I wasn’t going to get out-done in midfield because Irvine runs from there and is particularly good, Kightly has been a different class playing behind Woodrow so we had to take care of them, then we had Freddie (Sears) and Tom Lawrence up-front who have to take care of us and I thought, to be fair, we did that better than them.”
The Brewers are now two points outside of the relegation zone ahead of their trip to St Andrew’s where they face Birmingham City on Monday.