Town go to Burnley today needing to win to stay in the play-off race and manager Mick McCarthy believes they are well capable of beating the newly-promoted Clarets or anyone else on their day. Brighton went into sixth, four points ahead of the Blues with a significantly superior goal difference, after last night’s 2-0 victory over Yeovil.
McCarthy believes his team goes into any game with a chance of claiming the three points: "We think we can beat anybody. I do. We tip up every week and I’m not sat back [setting us up defensively].
"At Brighton [where we won 2-0] we ended up defending because they’re a good side, but we had more chances than them playing the way we played.
"There’s more than one way to skin a cat, of course. We’re quite happy and comfortable when playing anybody.
"I think Watford are a good side and I thought we played really well there and we conceded a goal which wasn’t like us which cost us the game.”
He says his side will need to have confidence in themselves to beat the Clarets, who confirmed their promotion to the Premier League with a 2-0 victory over Wigan on Monday.
"I think we can win every game and we’ll have to have that belief we’re going to go to Burnley and win,” he added.
"It’ll be a great atmosphere there because they’ve achieved utopia, they’ve won promotion back to the Premier League.
"And they will be cock-a-hoop. They’ll want to win but the result doesn’t matter to them except for that bit of pride that they want to win their last home game. But it doesn’t really matter.
"It still matters to us. We could be here playing Sheffield Wednesday next week with a chance of making the play-offs.”
He says he’s been pleased with his team’s consistency over the course of the campaign: "I don’t get to that stage where I think suddenly we’re going to crack and crumble or we’re going to be great or whatever.
"We are what we are and all season long I think we’ve been consistent. And I expect them to keep the same mentality, the same performances.
"If we play as well as we have done in the last two games then we can go to Burnley and win. If we drop our standards, no matter what Burnley have been doing this week, then we’ll have a tough afternoon.”
But he says it’s inevitable that the Clarets will lose some of their intensity having confirmed their return to the top flight: "You work all year but I bet when you go on holiday you relax.
"That’s a bit what it’s like. They’ve achieved their goal. I don’t know anybody who gets to the top of Everest who wants to start climbing any further when they get up there. They don’t go back down and climb up again.
"Any analogy you want to put on it, once you’ve achieved it, it really is difficult if you’ve just relaxed, you’ve got to work yourself back up to that intensity.
"You know what they might do. Dychey might have had them in all week training and saying ‘We’re going to beat Ipswich…’. I doubt it though. I reckon one or two might just have had a beer on Monday and Tuesday and relaxed.
"You only have to relax five per cent and if they're not as wired for it on Saturday as they should be, we might have an advantage.”