Ipswich had won two of their previous three games since McCarthy took over, but he said: 'We are brittle and timid at the minute, and if you want to describe it as awful and abject I am quite happy with that to be fair.

'We talk about being hard to beat and not doing anything stupid, and then we give away a penalty. The manner in which we conceded the goals was dreadful.

'It was embarrassing to be honest. It hurts me as a manager because I take pride in my teams being organised, tough, resolute and hard to beat. There is no point arguing about whether it was a penalty or not. If we had gone across and cleared it there would be no penalty.

'This was awful. There were no positives, and we have to try and make sure it doesn't happen again.'

Leicester City assistant manager Craig Shakespeare, by contrast, was ecstatic after they scored six goals in a league match for the first time in 25 years and ended a winless run of four games.

The last time they scored six goals in the league was against Sheffield Wednesday at Filbert Street in January 1987.

City's goal fest began in the eighth minute, with David Nugent scoring from the spot after goalkeeper Stephen Henderson brought down Lloyd Dyer. Nugent struck again in the 18th minute, tapping in when Martyn Waghorn's shot was spilled by Henderson.

It was his ninth goal of the season and his 11th in 11 games against Ipswich.

The impressive Dyer drove an angled shot into the bottom corner in the 27th minute and Anthony Knockaert made it 4-0 a minute before half-time.

Ipswich's woeful defending continued in the second half with Waghorn and substitute Marko Futacs adding further goals to complete a crushing victory.

'You hope if you turn in the performances you put in a result like that,' said Shakespeare.

'Over the course of the season, I think some of the football and attacking play has been outstanding.

'But we have, in all honesty, missed the chances. There is no getting away from that. But today, as in any game, it was very important to get the first goal. When we got that it seemed to settle everyone down a bit.

'Then, to go and score the amount we did and share the goals around, I thought we were very, very professional from start to finish. It was very accomplished.

'I have worked with Lloyd Dyer since he was a young boy at West Brom, and I think that in the last few weeks he has been playing the best football of his career.

'He has got that one thing that defenders are frightened of pace and it caused Ipswich a lot of problems. It was a good dressing room to be in afterwards.'

Daily Mail