Town boss Mick McCarthy says he sees the back-to-back home games against Reading on Saturday and Birmingham on Tuesday as an opportunity to push back towards the top two but won’t be taking either opposition side lightly.

He says that just like the supporters, everyone at the club is viewing this week as a big chance to get back into the automatic promotion places.

“As are we, I am as well," he said. "But I’m also aware of the qualities that the other teams will bring and certainly Reading will with the players that they’ve got.

“They’re one of them where you pick the team - Adam Federici, Stephen Kelly, Alex Pearce, it was Nathaniel Chalobah alongside him at centre-half the other night, it’ll probably be Michael Hector, who was excellent against us earlier in the season.

“Then there’s Jordan Obita, Garath McCleary, who was a Premier League player, Danny Williams, Oliver Norwood, Pavel Pogrebnyak, Simon Cox and Hal Robson-Kanu, and then they’ve got Jamie Mackie on the bench.

“That’s a proper Championship team, that. Don’t think for one minute that we’re going to have it easy, not a chance.

”And we went and watched Birmingham the other night and what’s he done with his team, it’s remarkable. So, yes, it’s an opportunity for us to do that but it’s not going to be easy.”

McCarthy is delighted that the Blues appear to have halted their January downturn but warns that there could be similar tough spells to come: “We might have another one, it’s the way it is.

“I’m thinking at the time 92 points is probably the total to get you promoted, it was more last year with Leicester (102) and I think Burnley (93) ended up with 41 points out of their last 19 games, which was just unbelievable.

“I don’t see that this time. I think we’re all going to cut each other’s throats. In our month coming up now there’s Norwich, Middlesbrough, Brentford and Watford, we’ve got them all to play and likewise they’ve got to play us and one another. And everybody’s capable of taking points off each other.”

He says the Championship will also throw up its usual share of unpredictable results.

“Look at us when we were at the wrong end of the table [two seasons ago]. We played Millwall and drew 0-0 and it looked like a good point.

“We came off the pitch three points above the relegation zone and we had Leicester coming here and it looked for all the world that we could be in the bottom three the following week and then we beat them 1-0.

“Nobody would have thought that. And that’s the league and you have to understand the league.

“Wigan go to Reading and beat them. Derby are 3-1 down at Rotherham and they draw three-all.

“Middlesbrough are 1-0 down at Birmingham with 10 men and come back, they did well in the second half, I was at that game in the week.

“There’s only an easy game when you’ve won it afterwards and you might think ‘Well, that was all right’ but never, ever beforehand in this league, it’s just a tough league.”

McCarthy believes there’s not too much between anyone in the division: “We’re not all that much better than everybody else. Why does anybody think that we have a divine right to go to Rotherham and beat them? And yet we had the most chances. Derby-Rotherham - three-all.

“Who thinks after Gary Rowett’s team has gone from bottom of the league to 12th and with the points they’ve taken that Middlesbrough can just turn up and beat them?

“It just does not happen in this league. Everybody’s scrapping for something. What’s 10th or 12th from the play-offs? How many points? If somebody put a run together they could be pecking at the play-off positions.

“Don’t put a run together and all then in the bottom three will be pecking at you. There’s never, ever a time when you can just sit back and relax.”

Photo: Action Images

jas0999 added 07:57 - Feb 21 Agree with Mick to an extent. There are no easy games. However lets be realistic also. We have two home games against teams in the bottom half of the table. Not easy, but could be a lot tougher. With tough looking away games on the horizon, we really need six points to maintain a automatic promotion challenge. Four would consolidate a play off position. Anything less than that and we will be looking over our shoulder rather than up.

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warktheline added 12:05 - Feb 21 6 points please, then let me drool over Championship table.....it doesn't take much to please me, some already know that!
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