Tommy Smith is adamant that Ipswich’s much-needed midweek home win over Nottingham Forest will not be a one-off.

Instead the 22-year-old central defender hopes the 3-1 success, which lifted Town out of the Championship drop zone, will signal better times generally, starting this weekend at Bolton.

Smith said: “Anyone who was at the Forest game would have said we deserved the three points. The lads worked hard as a team. It wasn’t as if there was one outstanding individual performance. The whole group performed well and there wasn’t one player who you would have said had a bad game.

“The result, just getting a win more than our league position, is what I think builds confidence. Hopefully we can take that win, move forward and put a good run of results together.

“No one wants to be in the bottom three. There are a lot of games coming up now, right through December, and hopefully we can pick up some points that will see us move even further up the table.”

Modest Smith laughed off the fact that his last three first team starts saw Town collect seven points from a possible nine to massively improve their league position.

He grinned: “I think that may be a bit of a coincidence. But I’m happy with that and I’d like it to continue, starting at Bolton obviously.

“They have a strong squad and I think that applies to all the teams relegated from the Premier League last season. We just have to go there with the same attitude that we showed on Tuesday night and hopefully it will be another good result.

“We set our standards against Forest and we can’t let them slip for the rest of the season.”

Smith also stressed the importance of having competition for places in every department, adding: “It’s a healthy situation. You can’t rest on your laurels, you’ve got to carry on working hard in training and you know that if your performances slip on a match day there is someone else ready to take your place.”

Photo: Action Images

bluelady added 08:20 - Nov 30 I think smith is a confidence player, when its going well he is a good player but when heads drops he can be a liability! If that is sorted we have a good player on our hands. His headering is much like Macauley's very rarely looses it in air and great at set pieces as attacks the ball, but its when its at his feet and he is being taken on that's when he can struggle
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