Boss Paul Jewell says there’s plenty more to come from his side with key midfielder Jimmy Bullard one of a number of players still to reach full fitness. Bullard, who showed signs of getting back to his best before tiring at Middlesbrough on Saturday, and several other regular starters joined the club at the end of Town’s pre-season programme.
Jewell said: "We will get fitter with games. Jimmy missed the pre-season, Sonko missed the pre-season, Daryl Murphy the missed pre-season, Lee Bowyer hasn’t had a full pre-season, Keith Andrews as well.
"There are a lot of players in our team who are getting fit with games, which anyone who has played the game will tell you is not ideal. But it’s the way we are.”
The Blues manager says defender Ibrahima Sonko, who was a doubt for Saturday’s draw at Middlesbrough with a knee problem, has suffered more than most: "He had a fitness test on Friday and trained with us.
"He’s played more matches than he’s trained. He was out on his feet at the end [on Saturday] when we were getting a bit deep and a bit stretched, but we defended manfully and hopefully we can keep this mini-run we’re on with two clean sheets going.”
Jewell was delighted to prevent the opposition from scoring for the second successive game: "People always tell you the obvious — you don’t lose matches if you keep clean sheets.
"I thought that they had a couple of opportunities in the second half but it wasn’t as if our keeper was making save after save and the clean sheet is obviously a big positive."
Town now face a difficult couple of fixtures with games away at West Ham tomorrow and at home to Brighton on Saturday, but the Liverpudlian believes there are no easy matches in the Championship in any case: "There’s no such thing as a run which isn’t tricky - every game is difficult in this league.
"I was talking to [Peterborough boss] Darren Ferguson on Tuesday and he said Middlesbrough were the best team they played, so it was always going to be difficult. However, I felt we acquitted ourselves well.
"We’re a new team seven or eight games into the season, so it’s a work in progress. We’ve got a lot of experience there but we’ve added a lot of new players to the group, so it’s going to take time.”
Boro boss and former Blues skipper and coach Tony Mowbray feels Town are moving in the right direction: "I think they’ve obviously improved from their Peterborough experience and their Southampton at home experience. It seems as though they’ve tightened up at the back. ”
The man known as Mogga says Town have the squad to finish at the right end of the table: "Their midfield have all got a fair bit of Premier League experience. They've got some good, talented footballers.
"On paper you would think they’ve got every right to believe that they’re going to be at the top end of the table pushing.
"We’ll wait and see how well they do. I can’t sit here and say whether they are going to do great because they are where they are after eight games.
"But they have made some signings, have spent some money and generally spending money equates to a better league position because you’ve got better players. We’ll wait and see.”