Town boss Paul Jewell says he was surprised by his side’s slow start to Saturday’s game at Cardiff and put it down to a lack of self-belief, something he says will become stronger the more games they win. The Blues were poor in the first half against the Bluebirds and were lucky not to be behind but vastly improved after the break with Jimmy Bullard scoring twice.
Jewell said: "I don’t know why we started slowly, but there’s probably a lack of belief. I’ve said to them since I’ve been here that this league is difficult but that there are no Real Madrids in it and that we have to believe that we can compete. Sometimes it takes a kick up the backside or whatever.
"We can compete at this level, no doubt about it. We’ve got some good players. We’ve just got to have that belief and that inner strength which at times has been a bit lacking.
"But that can only come with winning games and getting more people jumping on board and believing that they can win matches.
"I thought we sat off Cardiff in the first half and we let them play and looked like we’d come to get beaten.”
Despite the impressive result against one of the division’s promotion challengers, Jewell’s not getting carried away: "We’re not safe from relegation yet, that’s the way I see it.
"We’ve got 45 points now but we’ve got three games this week, today, Tuesday and Saturday and if we hadn’t won any of them, then all of a sudden we’d be looking back down.
"We don’t want our players to be complacent. We just looked a little bit scared at Cardiff, a little bit on edge and I don’t know what it was. Half-time came at a good time.”
Jewell was surprised at the harsh treatment of Cardiff boss Dave Jones by the home fans on Saturday with chants of ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’ sung as the Blues took control after the break: "Dave Jones was second in the league before the game and he doesn’t know what he’s doing! I wish I didn’t know what I was doing as well! I think sometimes you just can’t win in this game.
"It was madness, madness. But that’s the level of expectation at clubs. I think Cardiff will go up, make no mistake about it.
"It’s amazing. I’m not going to comment on Cardiff, but I find it astounding for a team that’s had such an outstanding season, and also the last couple of seasons that he’s been here, and with the money he’s made them by selling top class players. If he doesn’t know what he’s doing, we might as well all go home!”