Paul Jewell says he’s a big fan of the play-offs, unlike former Blues boss Joe Royle. The current Town manager says the system ensures there are fewer dead games towards the end of a season.
Jewell says Royle was no fan of the set-up which stopped his third-placed Blues side from joining the new boss’s Wigan in the Premier League in 2004/05: "Joe hated the play-offs, he didn’t agree with them.
"I think they are one of the best things that happened to football because without them teams would be drifting. There aren’t many end of season games now which mean nothing, it’s either promotion or relegation. I think it’s a great thing.”
However, that doesn’t mean Jewell is bigging up Town’s chances of making the top six this season: "I’m a positive person and I want us all to be positive, but a month ago we were staring down the barrel a little bit, going to Millwall when if results had gone against us we could have been a point away from third or fourth bottom.
"I understand results have changed that and everything’s looking up and rosy but I’ve just got to be careful. We want to be positive but we’ve got to be realistic. If we win on Saturday, great, then the next thing is QPR on Tuesday.
"We’ve all done it, you get your fixtures and you get your opposition’s fixtures and you go through it and by the end of the night on the computer you’ve won the league!
"Forget about it, just look forward to the next game. I think the fans are looking forward to coming, we’ve scored a few goals lately and long may that continue.”
Stand-in skipper Grant Leadbitter is similarly pessimistic about Town’s top six aspirations: "You can discard the play-offs. They are a long, long way off.
"I suppose if we win our last 16 games, then we will have a chance, but they are a long way off. There are a lot of teams above us. We have got to concentrate on winning the next few games. I’m not looking at the play-offs.”
Despite this, Jewell says that there’s a growing vibrancy at the club: "There is a buzz about the place, I love that and that’s what we want. But we have to temper that with realism.
"There’s a buzz about the training ground. I was talking with Ian Snodin, he came and had a coffee with us at the hotel on Monday night, his lad plays at Leeds and his brother’s assistant manager there, and he said the place is fantastic.
"You go on the training ground and it’s brilliant, the noise, the atmosphere is vibrant and that’s what I want. I had that at Wigan, I had that at Bradford and it’s no coincidence that we had success.
"You’ve need a vibrant place, with noise and aggression in a light way, and we’ve got that at the moment, but if we take our eye off the ball we’ll lose that, so we’ve got the drive them forward, ask them all the time for even more. You’ve won 6-0? Forget about that, can we go and beat Hull?
"There are no guarantees, but at the moment it’s a great place to work and I’m loving every minute of it.”