Manager Mick McCarthy believes his side are amongst the leading contenders for an automatic promotion place on merit as the Blues go into their 27th game of the season at Brighton this evening.

McCarthy's side will go to the top of the table for the second time this season if they beat the 20th-placed Seagulls at the Amex Stadium with leaders Bournemouth having been defeated 1-0 at Leeds last night. The Blues are a point behind the Cherries but with a significantly worse goal difference.

Middlesbrough's 2-1 home victory over Cardiff took them ahead of the Blues into second on goal difference.

“We are where we are on merit now because we’re so far into the league that it’s not an accident,” McCarthy said.

“It’s analysing how you got there and why you got there and how you’ve won games and why you’ve won games and trying to maintain it.

“That’s what my approach is and that’s what the players’ approach is as well. We all have a certain way of doing things and ours, thank goodness, at the moment, is working and continued to work on Saturday.

“Whether it’s on the pitch or off the pitch the way you do it, keep doing it. And hopefully we can keep that momentum by doing it that way.”

The Town boss reviewed Saturday’s 3-1 win at Millwall and was pleased to see his team get back to winning ways after two defeats, although he didn’t see too many differences in the performances in those three games.

“I just saw it was us [against Millwall] and we were us against Derby and we were us against Southampton,” he said.

“Against Derby the game was 50-50, it was one mistake. Against Southampton, they’re actually better than us. We lost to the better team. They scored a fabulous goal from Shane Long, it was a fabulous finish from what I thought was a great tackle prior to that from Chambo.

“You know what, they didn’t let us get anywhere near their goal really. The nice thing was that they didn’t really get anywhere ours either.

“Two tough games and we’ve got back on track with a win at Millwall, which was another hard game, bearing in mind the circumstances and the number of changes they’d made and the atmosphere they created because of it. That was a great three points. And it was us, we were just back at it.”

He’s enjoying managing a club in the division’s upper reaches with the Blues set to lead the division if they win tonight following the Cherries' surprise defeat at Elland Road.

“We could go top depending on the results [on Tuesday night], of course, because Middlesbrough and Bournemouth are both playing," McCarthy added at yesterday's press conference.

“It’s much nicer to be at a club which is near the top and pushing for promotion rather than relegation.

“It’s nicer when you know there’s a buzz around the town. It’s nicer when people actually feel they can actually speak to you.

“And they don’t ignore you when things are not going well, they just find it hard to say anything to you. What do you say when you’ve just been beaten 4-0 at home? Generally if that happens they say something stupid like ‘You were hopeless on Saturday!’ and that really gets the conversation off to a good start.

“When you’ve won, people tend to come up to you and acknowledge you and speak to you and say you’re doing well. I far prefer that, I much prefer that and I think everybody around the town would back that up.”

Photo: Action Images

JustSpivvyChops added 08:01 - Jan 21 If somebody said "well played on Saturday" after a 0 - 4 loss, I'd suggest you'd be more upset than if they told you it was a terrible performance.....that aside, we are where we are on merit so far, but I'm afraid I would strongly disagree that we were ourselves against Derby and Southampton, we put in 2 below par performances and got beaten twice as a result.

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SouperJim added 11:22 - Jan 21 Complete nonsense. Sometimes you have to give the opposition credit, both those teams were very difficult to play against yet we still put in very professional hard-working performances. We have no divine right to win every week.
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