Chairman and CEO Mark Ashton believes the Blues have come through a period of readjustment following relegation to the Championship and have begun to gain momentum over the last few weeks.

Town had a slow start to the season with the squad in a state of flux during August, drawing three and losing one in the league in the first month of the campaign, but since the transfer window closed have won three and drawn one, including the 3-1 derby victory over Norwich City prior to the international break, and are unbeaten in five ahead of Friday’s live-on-Sky visit to second-in-the-table Middlesbrough.

“The welcome back to the Championship has been what we expected - extremely tough,” Ashton told talkSPORT. “It’s one of the toughest and best divisions in the world for a reason. I think anyone beats anyone on a given day, there’s never much between the sides and the start has been tough, albeit we’ve started to gain momentum in recent weeks.”

Ashton dismissed the suggestion that the Blues not winning promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt would be viewed as failure.

“I wouldn’t deem it as failure,” he said. “I’ve never started a season at any club where promotion wasn’t the game.

“We’re very clearly set on what we want to build. We want to build a club for the long term, a lot of good things are going on here, a lot of infrastructure projects being built.

“We’re still in essence year four into the project where we’re rebuilding the club but ultimately promotion is the absolute aim.”

Reflecting on last season’s relegation from the top flight, he continued: “I think the biggest challenge we faced was 20 years outside the top flight and only one year in the Championship, so you just couldn’t build the infrastructure quickly enough.

“And ultimately we weren’t good enough, we couldn’t build that quickly enough once we got to the Premier League.

“The next time we get there, the training ground will be complete, recruitment has been enhanced, staffing has been enhanced, the whole club has moved forward, revenues have increased, which gives us a better platform to try and be more competitive.

“It’s the best league in the world for a reason, it’s brutal, and it does leave some scars when you come back down that you need to work through.

“Our challenge hasn’t been recruiting players, it’s been retaining the best ones because clubs want your players. Some of those have played out in the press, the likes of Omari Hutchinson to Nottingham Forest for the best part of £40 million, [Liam] Delap to Chelsea, [Nathan] Broadhead to Wrexham for £10 million.

“We’ve sold well, we’ve brought in £80 million in revenue, we’ve bought some players, that’s part of our model, but that readjustment back to the Championship does take a little bit of time and I’d like to feel we’ve now just come through that.”

Meanwhile, Ashton expressed support in some areas but also some concerns regarding the recently established Independent Football Regulator, which has been instituted to protect and promote the sustainability of English football.

Last week, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport announced that former television executive David Kogan had been appointed as the chair and Richard Monks, formerly of the Financial Conduct Authority, the CEO.

“The regulator’s here ultimately because football couldn’t do a deal for football and that disappoints and saddens me,” Ashton said. “But we are where we are.

“The regulator has a role to play, the regulator is not going to go away. I think it’s important that it is the clubs that engage with the regulator because clubs are very multi-dimensional organisations and there are a lot of intricacies in running these organisations, so I think it’s important the regulator listens.

“I think the boundaries for the regulator have to be set really clearly because regulatory creep does worry me, and we need to help the regulator understand the nuances of the game.

“Ultimately, there are things that are very positive that I think they bring, none of us wants to see clubs in distress, but also I don’t want to see any form of controls that prevent growth by the regulator, and I think that’s key to the industry.”

Meanwhile, the logo from Ed Sheeran’s new album Play will appear on Barcelona shirts for their women’s game against Granada CF and the men’s Clasico against Real Madrid.

ITFC