Town boss Paul Jewell hopes his side get only their second win of the season under their belts at Barnsley on Saturday, but would prefer not to see a repeat of last season’s 5-3 victory at Oakwell. After that game the Blues manager joked that he was asking assistant Chris Hutchings how to spell ‘yours sincerely’ with his team two goals down at the break and looking set for an eighth successive defeat.
Jewell said: "I’m definitely not hoping for a 2-0 deficit at half-time! It’s a game of football, we’ve got to stand up.
"They’ve had a fantastic result against Birmingham. Like every team in this league, they’re capable on their day of winning a match.
"They won it exceptionally well, but Saturday’s another game. We’ve just got to stand up and be counted. We can’t be shrinking violets, we’ve got to go there, we’ve got to stand up and try and match them in all departments.”
He believes his team would be higher in the Championship if they could take their opportunities in the manner that they did in the second half at Barnsley last season, a game which was shown live by Sky: "If we could take our chances when they come along I think we would be looking at a lot healthier league table.
"We were watching videos during the week of games we’ve had this season and without being blasé about it, we should have at least six more points by now.
"But we haven’t, we are where we are. However, the amount of good opportunities that we’ve created and missed has cost us.”
He admits that he thought his time at Town might be coming to a close back at Oakwell in December last year: "We were 2-0 down and it looks like it’s going to be eight games on the bounce and I’m thinking ‘it’s going to be Christmas at home’, I’ve got to be honest with you.
"But we turned it around. That’s how fickle and how crazy football is. Within 10 or 20 seconds of the start of the second half we’d got a goal and after another 20 minutes we’d got four more.
"Tiny margins can become huge chasms. We’ve got to try and turn it around as quickly as we can again.”