Message from Mick

Dear Coxhoe Branch,

It wasn't a red card, quite clearly it wasn't. Welshy's a 5ft 8in skinny left-winger who jinks and turns. He's not a 6ft 2 ins centre-back.
It's not a sending off - it wasn't even a yellow card.
He [Welsh] twisted in mid-air, that was all. I asked him [the referee] to have a look at it and he did it.
It's his asistant who said it. He said Andy swung out at him. He hasn't done it. I kind of feel for the ref because he has to send him off if the assistant says it.
There's no pont in me chewing on at him because it will not serve any purpose.
Andy was terrific. A good 15 grand's worth from Stockport! He has been different class that kid. He's come in and worked hard, built himself up. He deserves to be playing just for his attutude.
There is a suggestion we could have had a penalty. They had a good start and a good couple of chances. The difference in the first half was a wonder-strike.
We had good chances, good balls into the box. We got in behind them and played a lot of good football. I thought they paid us a lot of respect in the first half. They had to because we had good possession.
That said they pushed on in the second half. We perhaps did not have the courage of our own conviction to push on. They had the better of the second half.
We'll never know about the last 10 or 15 minutes becuse we put two on and tried to get something.
It will be difficult enough for us this season without having people sent off for something like that.
I'm pleased he [Cisse] didn't score, we might have had a few more problems then. Stubbsy got clattered [by Gerrard] and perhaps it was that incident that led to him being taken off.
There was a few running the risk of beng sent off.
I don't think the game warrented so many yellow cards. There was a bit of Swan Lake going on!
There were some tackles. I think if they are allowed to compete and tackle the players then have more respect for each other. They just get up and get on with it then.
I've had two games in the Premiership and it's a better place to be. Perhaps we've got to learn that people are a bit cuter, brighter, more intelliegent in the Premier League - that's why they are playing there.
We need to learn. In fact we have because this peroformance was a lot better than the last [against Charlton].
If anything I can go away happy at the way we played. I might be unhappy about some other things, but I'm happy with the way we played.All the best,Mick McCarthy