Town boss Mick McCarthy was delighted to learn that his side equalled a club record of five successive wins on the road by beating Brighton 1-0 at the Amex Stadium and hopes his side can now surpass that total at Burnley on Saturday. Daryl Murphy netted the only goal in the 32nd minute to secure the three points.
McCarthy’s Blues had previously thrashed Rotherham 5-2 at the New York Stadium, won 3-0 at Charlton, 1-0 away against the MK Dons and beaten Fulham 2-1 at Craven Cottage.
Between October and December 1976 Sir Bobby Robson’s Town won five on the road for the only previous time in the club’s history by beating Bristol City 2-1, West Ham 2-0, Manchester United 1-0, Middlesbrough 2—0 and Birmingham 4-2 in the old First Division.
"It’s not where you get the points, I’d like to have a better home record but it’s how many you get in May that’ll decide what happens. But it’s great, I’m delighted,” McCarthy said.
"Did Bobby get six? Well, we’ve got Burnley on Saturday, wouldn’t it be lovely to beat it? But I think it’s going to be a tough ask. We’ll see."
The Town boss was pleased to finally defeat one of the sides in the Championship’s top five having fallen short when facing them on all but one occasion so far this season.
"We’ve managed to beat one of the big boys, one of the top six,” he added. "Our record hadn’t been great, we’d beaten Burnley but we caught them on the hop at the start of the season really.
"We’d lost to Brighton at home, lost to Derby, lost to Middlesbrough, lost to Hull, but I did think we had an opportunity here tonight because I think they were a little bit depleted, they’d lost a few players.”
He added "And because we were playing well, not for any other reason other than that we’ve been playing well.
"We’ve been really solid. Yes, we’ve lost to Middlesbrough but there’ll be a lot of teams who will do that.
"Yes, we lost to Derby, there’ll be a lot of teams who do that and we played very well in those games. But we’ve been on a good run and I fancied us.
"I watched them on Saturday, the second half when they went 4-3-3, and I suspected that [would be the way they’d line up], so I set a team up which could play that way with Kevin Bru and Murph, Fraser and Freddie up top.
"Tactically, we could have done both, 4-4-2 or 4-3-3, and it worked. I thought we were the better team, to be honest.
"I know they’ll probably look at the stats tomorrow and everybody who has been here will be saying, ‘They had a lot of possession, a lot of balls in our box’, but I haven’t seen Gerks make a lot of saves.
"We hit the crossbar, the post, he’s made a save at Dougie’s feet and we’ve had the better chances, despite them having the biggest ball retention.”
The Town boss was pleased to see Daryl Murphy claim his seventh goal of the season after confirming the Irish international did get the final touch on the goal with Seagulls defender Connor Goldson sliding in to try and keep the ball out.
"Was it over the line? I thought it was. Good, I’m pleased. I thought it was over when I saw it. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, it was a goal and we won.”
McCarthy also had praise for Dean Gerken, who continued his excellent recent form with his first half save from Dale Stephens outstanding.
"He’s a good goalkeeper, isn’t he?” the Town manager continued. "When there were a few doubters when we were losing games, or rather we weren’t winning and we were conceding goals, he wasn’t at fault.
"He’s been terrific and he’s got great back-up from Bart. Gerks is terrific and I’m delighted with him.”
Following that save from Stephens, Jamie Murphy tapped home the rebound but in an offside position, according to the linesman.
"I thought it was a great decision!” McCarthy enthused. "I’m told it was offside, but I haven’t seen it again.
"I was also told we should have had a penalty when he [Lewis Dunk] tripped Murph, but I haven’t seen them, so I don’t know, I’ve only been told by people who saw them afterwards.
"But it doesn’t really matter, does it? Bobby Zamora hit the crossbar. It doesn’t matter, we scored the only goal.”
The Town boss was pleased to see Luke Hyam and a number of other players who have recently spent time on the sidelines unfit in action.
"Great to see Luke Hyam back, great to see Kevin Bru back, he’s been out long-term as well,” he said.
"I think he was like the tin man after half-time, he’d seized up. He says he was all right but if that’s him all right I don’t want to be.
"And it was great to see Ryan back on the pitch and Reg Varney after being out for six months. It’s great to see the lads who have been out come back and contribute, it’s terrific.”
Does he believe the Blues have a chance of reaching one of the automatic promotion spots?
"No, not at all,” he admitted. "I don’t think we can beat Derby and Middlesbrough with the points we are behind them. I think they’ll be too much, but we’ll be trying like hell to catch them!”
Brighton manager Chris Hughton says his side, who have now lost their last two home games and are without a win in their last five matches, are currently finding scoring goals tough.
"We’re finding it difficult to get the goals we need to win football matches,” he admitted. "And, of course, if you’re not getting them you’ve got to make sure you’re keeping clean sheets and certainly in the last two games we’ve found that difficult.
"I think we probably couldn’t have done any more in the second half to try and get back in the game.
"We probably got in as many crosses in a half than at any time that I’ve been here, but at the minute we’re just lacking that way of finding a way to find a goal.”
He added: "There’s probably a frustration on two counts. One, on a day that you want things to go for you we made the mistake for the goal.
"But also certainly from what I’ve seen so far the goal that we scored in the first half shouldn’t have been disallowed.
"If that’s the case, the disappointment is that it was a linesman who was on this side and it was an Ipswich player on this side [Christophe Berra] who was keeping him onside. So, that’s a frustration.
"But probably on a day where things didn’t go so well for us that was just one of a few frustrations.”