Manager Mick McCarthy says if the Blues play as they have in their first three Championship games of the season they’ll stand a chance of making the top six come May. So far, Town have lost to newly-relegated Reading and QPR and have beaten Millwall.
McCarthy said: "I want to play as well as we’ve played in the last three games, and if we achieve that we’ll be OK.
"I’ve said all along that the top six is where we’re aiming. If we achieve it, brilliant. We’ll see, we’ll just keep playing like we’re doing.”
He says he’s found the division to be just as it always is up to now: "Same old Championship. We’ve had three good performances but we’ve lost two of the games. It’s just the way it is.
"If you’re the one that makes the mistake and they take advantage from it [you’ll lose the game]. There’s been no dominant teams. Even us beating Millwall 3-0, we hardly overran them for 90 minutes. We deserved to win, we took our chances, but it’s going to be a long old scrap.”
While McCarthy feels that Town played well in defeat at both the Madejski Stadium and Loftus Road, but says that was little consolation for not getting the points: "I’m not into all that ‘We played well and got beat’, we want to get results.
"I know in the cold light of day you take encouragement from the way you’ve played. I think you can only take care of your performance. If you play well you’ll get more good results than bad. But I’m not into all that heroic failure nonsense, I want to get points.”
The Town boss added 18-year-old left winger Jordan Adekunle to his development squad yesterday, taking his total of summer signings to 11.
He says that there’s not really been the huge turnaround that that number suggests and that everyone has settled in well: "They’ve been great.
"If you analyse the people who came in, amongst the new players were David McGoldrick, who was with us since January, Tabby was with us from January, Murph had a testimonial while he was on loan, he’d been here that long.
"Lots of them were players that had played with us, so they were all settled in. But the new ones, Cole Skuse, Paul Anderson, Dean Gerken, Christophe Berra, they’ve all settled in great. I’m delighted with the lads we’ve signed.”
Is he looking for any more additions before the end of the transfer window? "I’m satisfied with the ones we’ve got.
"Everybody wants more players, everybody wants better players, everybody wants more, more, more, whether it’s money or players. But I’m delighted with the ones I’ve got, I think I’ve got a really good squad.”
The £20,000 spent on former Waterford winger Jack Doherty is the only fee the Blues have paid this summer and McCarthy believes that Town have done good business: "I think we’ve been smart in our transfer dealings.
"We haven’t had to spend money and we’ve got good players in. You can’t beat that, can you?”