Town boss Paul Jewell says Peterborough United’s progress in their last couple of games illustrates how quickly things can change in the Championship. Bottom-of-the-table Posh are now only one point behind the 23rd-placed Blues.
Jewell says he wasn’t shocked by the London Road club following their 3-1 win at Hull on Saturday with a 2-0 victory at Barnsley in midweek: "I’m not surprised at Peterborough. They’re a good team with good players.
"Funnily enough I spoke with Darren Ferguson after the Charlton game on the Sunday and I asked him how he was doing and he said ‘how am I doing!?’,” Jewell recounted, suggesting that Ferguson felt it was a redundant question with his team at the foot of the table.
"We had five more points than them and now they’ve won two games in a row and everything’s looking tight down at the bottom.
"I’m aware that two or three victories in this league puts you up somewhere near the play-offs. You lose a quick two or three and you’re back down with the dead men.”
Overall, he says he was pleased with the performance in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw at Brighton: "It was good. We knew that when we went to Brighton they’d have a lot of the ball and I think the gameplan we executed worked very well.
"We were a little bit disappointed to concede the goal in the last 10 minutes, but I thought for large periods of the game we frustrated them and on the break we played some really incisive football and I think Daryl Murphy could have had a hat-trick.
"Their keeper’s made a couple of really good saves, so all in all, it was a good performance. We know we’re in a sticky spell at the moment but you can see from the last two performances that the players are fighting for the cause and contrary to what some people have said, they’re not throwing in the towel.”
He says he’s aware that managers always say the same things when their clubs are struggling, calling on their teams to show bravery: "They’re all the things that you guys have heard a million times from managers whose teams aren’t playing well.
"It’s easy to say those things but you have got to be brave in possession as well as out of possession and I thought the other night we did that.”
Regarding the fan who shouted at him to resign prior to the Brighton match, he says it was the fact that he waited until he was out of sight before making the comment which irked him: "If you want to say it, just say it to my face. But he waited until I’d gone round the corner, that was all.
"I’ve got to be honest, he’s not the only one. If you’re going to say it, say it to my face, and he was a middle-aged man as well. "
But he admits it’s no surprise to him that he’s not the flavour of the month with supporters: "Since I’ve been at Ipswich, we haven’t given fans anything to really get excited about. That’s the disappointing thing. Every time we have [got close], we’ve ended up falling on our faces.
"I’m working exceptionally hard. I love the club, I love working here and I’m just going to give it everything I’ve got, which is all I can do.
"If I can look at myself in the mirror every day and think I’m doing my best, I think that’s fine. If I’m not, or someone thinks I’m not, that’s fine. I can’t go around worrying about middle-aged men wearing flares!”
He says he’s determined to turn things around and change those detractors’ minds: "I take my job ultra-seriously and I hate the situation we’re in at the moment and I’m going to fight to get out of it.”