Town boss Mick McCarthy hopes Wednesday’s brief flirtation with the promised land of the Premier League will inspire his players on to win promotion this season.
Despite changing his entire XI for the Capital One Cup third round tie against Manchester United, which the Blues lost 3-0, the full squad flew up to Old Trafford.
"Christophe Berra and I were talking before the game and he said ‘I miss it gaffer’. You don’t realise until you come back and you it and you see the grandeur of it and the splendour of it and the occasion that it is, playing Premier League teams.
"There are about six people at this press conference, if it was a Premier League game it would probably be full, we’d probably have to get a bigger building.
"The interest in it is far greater, the crowd was more than 50,000, it was a fabulous evening for it.
"So we take all of that, but the players who didn’t play, they’ll want to play there next year as a Premier League side.
"Earlier today I asked some of them who did what the best part of it was and the worst part, apart from the result.
"Josh Emmanuel said competing against them and playing well against them, because he did.
"Andreas Pereira scored a great goal but it was nothing to do with Josh, I thought he was terrific against him.
"Josh Yorwerth up against Rooney and Fellaini and just playing well against them. We’re talking about a Champions League club, a Champions League team.
"What I take out of it is that I look at them all and think ‘I can play them’. They can all play in the team, I’ve no worries. I’m not looking over my shoulder and thinking ‘I’m not putting him on’. I look over my shoulder and think I’ve got 22 players I can play.”
He says he had two reasons for taking the whole squad to the North-West.
"I think 24 of us travelled," he said. "It was double-pronged really because we travel some distances to get the games and the ones that travel every week and don’t play show their support for the ones who are playing and have to be around going ‘All the best’ beforehand and ‘Well done’ afterwards or ‘Unlucky’.
"That’s a real measure of the support that the squad give one another and there are some players who spend a whole season doing that and they’re fantastic, the ones that do it selflessly, willingly and they’re there all the time and then are training on a Sunday morning when they haven’t played and are being the back-up guys.
"Well, I think it’s nice for the other ones to see that and to be there for them and to support them when they’re playing.
"So there was a lot of that, and also to see the stadium and see what we’re not doing, to see what we’re missing. If we get promoted to see what we’ll get.”
Aside from Jay Tabb and Daryl Murphy none of the Blues' starting XI had previously played at Old Trafford and McCarthy felt that showed during the opening 45 minutes.
"I think maybe there was a bit of that in the first half, it was a bit ‘We’re playing against Man United!’," he said.
"We got them in at half-time and said ‘Hold on a minute, if we’re going go down, go down fighting and have a go’ and the second half was great, much different.
"But it is a bit of an awe-inspiring place. There will be a lot of players who go there and freeze. We didn’t freeze but we were far better as the game went on.”
He hopes the match will inspire his players to secure a return visit in the league next season.
"That’s what we want to try and achieve, of course. That’s our aim,” he added. "I’ve just been asked if I’m under more pressure with the result on Saturday. We’ve got to win, no matter what team I’ve picked.
"I would think I would be slightly more worried about my performance and my team’s if they’d all travelled back having played 90 minutes and got back into their beds at three o’clock because I was goosed yesterday.
"I’m giving them all about 20 or 30 years but nevertheless I was knackered, so I know how they feel.”