Boss Mick McCarthy is still unsure how many points the Blues will require in order to confirm their Championship status fir 2013/14. Saturday’s last-gasp 1-0 victory over Derby at Pride Park took Town up to 14th in the table on 53 points, six from the drop zone.
"I’m not very good at hard questions,” joked McCarthy when asked how many points would ultimately be required for survival.
"I’ve no idea. I remember when I came into the job in November I thought it would be 50 points because that’s generally the case.
"But it’s looked like it’s going to be more. It has been bonkers, the whole league. We’ve come off when we’ve won and everybody else has won and I said that at some stage that will stop. Not all the bottom teams can keep winning.
"We worked hard, we fought our corner but we got lucky at Derby. Or was it a good [penalty] save? The strike at the end wasn’t lucky, it was a great strike.”
While the Blues were fortunate against the Rams, the rub of the green has gone against them in previous games with McCarthy a firm believer in the old adage that in time these things even themselves out.
"I think it does over a season,” he said. "It’s easy to be magnanimous when I’m sat here and we’ve just won but I did say that when we lost, so I’m not just being smart now.
"I did say that [at Forest] and I did say that when we were at Bristol City and we played ever so well and we didn’t get any luck, but it does change.
"You have to believe that you get a fair ratio of good and bad decisions and good and bad performances when you win and lose.”
Despite admitting that his team’s display was well under par, the spirit he has instilled since he took over at the start of November was again evident.
"They’ve been fabulous, that’s been right through the club since I’ve been here,” he said. "Without that we’d have been out of the league now. The players deserve a huge amount of credit for that, they’ve been excellent.”
Saturday’s fifth clean sheet in a row equalled a club record — the last time Town achieved similar was towards the end of the 1996/97 campaign — and was the seventh time in eight matches that the Blues had prevented the opposition from scoring.
The only goal in that time came from Nottingham Forest, Lewis McGugan's deflected effort when Town were down to nine men. The Blues have also now gone 10 away matches without conceding a first half goal, a new club record.
Given Town’s previous defensive fragility, McCarthy is delighted: "It’s a really good record of clean sheets.
"Somebody can always find the negative in that, someone asked me [last week] about keeping clean sheets — ‘Why don’t you score some goals?’. Well, six 0-0 draws between then and the end of the season, I think we’d stay up with that, so I’ll take three more now.”
Scott Loach has been in goal for the last three clean sheets, having registered another in his previous game, the 4-0 victory over Middlesbrough in February before a thumb injury saw Stephen Henderson return to the side.
The 24-year-old saved his second penalty of the season from Jamie Ward at Pride Park, Huddersfield's James Vaughan having taken the first in the 2-2 draw at Portman Road in September.
McCarthy says Loach watched footage of Derby’s recent spotkicks — Saturday’s miss was their fourth on the trot — on Friday and on the day of the game and he says he is pleased with the former Watford man: "I was delighted with him.
"I was giving him stick for some of his kicks when he kept kicking it out of play, but that’s just me being a pedantic manager and I’ll keep doing it. But he played well.”
Did the result finally mean that the Blues boss can see some light at the end of the tunnel? "I don’t know, but I’ll enjoy my beer tonight.”