Manager Mick McCarthy feels that Easter has left the Blues a little bit worse off, despite being happy with their four-point haul. Town, who beat Leeds 3-0 at home before drawing 0-0 at Millwall, are now in 17th in the Championship, three points from the relegation zone having reached the normal survival mark of 50 points.
Reflecting on the Easter weekend, McCarthy said: "It hasn’t made or broken us. It’s made us a little bit worse off, despite the fact that we’ve got four points.
"The league’s bonkers, isn’t it? We’re probably something like three points of relegation and six points off promotion at the minute! It’s just crazy.”
In fact the Blues are 10 points off the play-offs with only 13 points separating sixth-placed Brighton from Huddersfield in the final relegation spot and just seven between the Terriers and Derby County, Town’s next opponents, in eighth.
Why is the Championship so tight this season? "We’re all as bad as each other!” McCarthy joked. "On a given day you’ll get a stand-out performance, but over the season I think we’re all very much of a muchness. It’s been proven because the bottom teams are the form teams at the moment.”
The Town boss says he remains level-headed whatever the situation or the results: "I’m never one way or the other, up or down with it.
"We’ve had a good Easter, other teams have had better Easters than us. Some have had worse. Blackburn lost and Sheffield Wednesday drew, apparently. We all keep looking at everybody else’s results. Millwall drew, they’ve got a big semi-final coming up.
"It’s all still in the pot to be won or lost, and I can’t argue with how we’ve played over two games — not brilliant but four points is a good haul.”
While the Blues again failed to score at Millwall — they’ve netted only once on their travels in the league since the turn of the year and their run of five away blanks in a row equals a club record — McCarthy was pleased that the opposition also failed to register: "If we keep a clean sheet in the rest of our games we’ll stay up. It’s not a bad stat, is it? I’d like to score a goal though, to take the pressure off a bit.”
The Blues have now kept clean sheets in their last four games home and away, with one more equalling another club record.
The Town boss admits that he has no idea how many points might ultimately be required to stay up: "133! I don’t know. When I got the job everyone thought it would be 50 points, but we’ve got that now and we’re still in it.
"In 1996 Millwall went down with 52 and that was the highest I can remember. I think it might be even higher than that.
"We’ve all been saying over recent weeks, ‘Three wins, four wins, two wins’, whatever points you’re on. But it might still require another couple of wins. We’ll see.”