Town boss Mick McCarthy would rather be top of the league than bottom but says there’s a very long way to go before the end of the Championship season. The Blues climbed to first in the table on goal difference from Brighton after defeating Burnley 2-0 at Portman Road.
"Forty-three to go, roll on May!” McCarthy laughed when asked about the Blues hitting the summit after just three Championship games.
"It’s better to be there than bottom of the league, but there’s a lot of games to be played.”
He felt his side deserved to beat the Clarets: "Good result, good performance and I’m happy with both.
"We got away with them hitting the post [in the first half], that would have been a whole lot different.
"That was fortunate on our part but I think we were solid, I think it was two good teams, two very strong powerful teams, playing good football as well when we could, and it was a case of who blinked first.
"I remember 18 months ago we had the same here. I thought we had the share of the game but we lost the game because Scott Arfield scored with a header.
"It was a great bit of quality from them. And I think tonight we’ve shown that, certainly with Freddie’s goal.”
Brett Pitman came off the bench to create Sears’s goal and David McGoldrick, who scored the second, had also been introduced as a sub, illustrating the greater strength in depth available to McCarthy this season.
"We’ve been trying to do that every since I came to the club. I inherited a team with seven or eight loan players,” he recalled.
"We whittled that down the following season. The ironic thing is that two of our really outstanding players are loan players but I had to sacrifice a really good left-back for one of them and the other one is just outstanding, Ainsley, he’s fantastic.
"We haven’t got a squad of 24 or 25, I don’t really want that anyway, but what I’ve got I’m delighted with and they’re good quality.”
The Town boss says Daryl Murphy and Ryan Fraser were both replaced due to injuries: "Daryl had a tight calf and Fraser just jarred his knee in a tackle. I’ve no idea as yet [whether they’ll be doubts for the weekend], we’ll see tomorrow, I don’t know the extent of them.
"Straight after the game you can’t really tell, they’ll settle down overnight. Sometimes they come in and you think ‘How did that happen?” as they’re out training two days later. I’m hopeful that will be the case, but I don’t know.”
He says he’s not forgotten the Blues surrendering their two-goal lead in injury time at Brentford on the opening day.
"I’ve got to forget it but I can’t,” he said. "But I believe Middlesbrough were pegged back late on tonight. It’s going to happen, we’ll do it to somebody else and I hope it doesn’t happen to us again because it’s a real sickening feeling.
"But it happened and the really pleasing thing since then is that we’ve won three games, so it didn’t affect us.”
McCarthy is delighted with his four striking options and isn’t concerned when he sees other clubs looking to make big money signings, Bristol City having had a £9 million offer for Andre Gray accepted by Brentford.
"That doesn’t really faze me that, what other people are doing. Good luck to them if Steve [Cotterill] gets one.
"I think [our four strikers are incredibly strong] and Freddie’s been rewarded [with his new contract]. Fair play to Marcus.
"Freddie was on a long contract, he did the business for us last year and Marcus has rewarded him with a contract he fully deserves and reflects his status in the club, not as somebody who has come in trying to step up, he’s stepped up a gear and he’s top class. I’m delighted for him and for us that we’ve signed him.”
Burnley manager Sean Dyche said: "Up until the first goal there wasn’t much in it. We hit the post, we had a good chance through Jelle Vossen and dealt with a lot of their balls that came into the box from everywhere.
"But after the goal I thought they were the better side and they deserved to win.”