Blues boss Mick McCarthy believes his side was back to being the team that opposition managers expect to face during Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Huddersfield. Town travel to Hull City for the first of two tough away games tonight with a visit to Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
McCarthy felt his team showed the toughness and resilience which has been their hallmark since he took charge in November 2012 against the Terriers: "The Mick McCarthy way, whether it’s Ipswich Town, it was the same at Sunderland, Millwall, Wolves, Ireland.
"I haven’t changed. I said maybe we tried to refine it a bit and we maybe lost our way a little.
"Other teams know fully what to expect from us. You read it in everybody’s programme notes, ‘You know what to expect from a Mick McCarthy team…’.
"Well, they haven’t had that for a couple of weeks. I thought they did on Saturday. We weren’t great with the ball at times, but it was a tough game against a side with good players in the team, as well.
"But, as I said, another season, last season, we’d have probably nicked that with the chance at the end. But it wasn’t to be. But it was a clean sheet and there were a lot of positive things.”
One of those most significant positives was not letting in a goal, Town’s recent achilles heel: "You can’t put too much [importance on] the fact that we had a clean sheet after conceding goals the way we have done. And they had some chances but in the main they were blocked by our defenders.
"One got away from Tommy [Smith] and Christophe [Berra] covered it up. The two of them came together and it flicked off [Ishmael Miller’s] head and Christophe cleared it off the line.
"Tommy’s swept up for Chambo, and likewise those have been going in recently. That was a real positive from the back four.
"And when Gerks makes the save at the end you think ‘We’ll take the 0-0’, then we got the chance and it fell to one of the best strikers in the league and the keeper made an unbelievable save. So it wasn’t to be but there were a lot of positives in that game.”
McCarthy admits he likes reading opposition managers outlining the attributes of his side in their programme columns: "Of course I do, and I hope that continues.
"I’d say over the last three or four weeks that wouldn’t have been the case but I would say at Blackburn they prepared for what they were expecting from us, and we started OK but then we gifted them a penalty and for whatever reason they just took over the game and overran us. That doesn’t happen too often.
"Even at Reading, on the night we lost there we weren’t overrun. We had loads of chances in that game, we had chances to score. I think they had six attempts on target and five went in. We had 12 attempts or something.
"That wasn’t the case that evening, but Blackburn was. It was a bit of a rude awakening.”