Town boss Mick McCarthy says he doesn't "give a flying one” about the Blues being bottom of the Championship table when it comes to pass completion and 16th on possession.
The Blues’ pass success rate this season is 61.8 per cent the lowest in the Championship, while their share of possession during their league games is 49.1 per cent.
"Where are we in the league?” countered the Blues boss. "I can bring you, and I’m not going to, but I could, [stats which show that in] more games we’ve won, we’ve had less possession. If we have 400 passes, I guarantee we get beaten.
"I don’t give a flying one about the possession, I really don’t, because we come up against teams and they’ve had 400-and-some passes and we’ve had 220, and you know who has had 150 between them? Their two centre-backs, the central midfielder and the full-backs, and it’s not going anywhere.
"So, great. Their two centre-backs are wonderful players, they’ve both had 75 touches each. Am I bothered? No, because our centre forward’s had about 50 and he’s scored two goals.
"So don’t bring me stats. What is it they say? There are lies, damned lies and statistics? And that’s just what they are.”
He added: "I see the stats and sometimes I think ‘How the hell have we won that game?’. Then other times I think ‘We’ve murdered them’ and we’ve been beaten, we’ve had loads of passes, loads of crosses, loads of balls into the box. If you want somebody to analyse stats, get them all in here and see what happens.”
Regarding Saturday’s 2-2 FA Cup third round draw with Portsmouth, in which the League Two side had 68 per cent of the possession to the Blues’ 32 per cent, he said: "Portsmouth murdered us with the ball on Saturday. Did we lose? No.
"At Milton Keynes we won, and by the way should have won by more, we had the better chances.
"If you’re trying to get a story on stats, you can write all you like but I don’t give a monkey’s.
"The stats I like are that we’re in sixth position, we’ve got 41 points, we won five away on the bounce and drew on Saturday. We’ve been unbeaten for a while, we’re on a good run.
"There’s always somebody who could find a negative to anything, though, which I understand but find difficult to tolerate, I have to be honest. The only stat that matters is how many points you get at the end of the season.
"And there are all different ways of playing. Portsmouth were fantastic, they’re fourth in the league, but they’re not top of the league, so there are some good teams [in their division], but if they’re playing like that every week they’ve got to win the league, because they were outstanding.”
Despite the low possession and pass completion statistics McCarthy says his team has a consistent threat from wide areas through wingers Freddie Sears and Ryan Fraser.
"And I have with Tommy Oar and Ainsley Maitland-Niles as well," he added. "We’ve been a real threat.
"I go back to it. Portsmouth were great on Saturday and they should have won the game. We’re just on the back of beating QPR with the team that’s playing, beating Brighton, drawing at Burnley.
"So we have a draw in the FA Cup with a lot of changes. Hey ho, we’ve been a real threat, us. We’ve been a constant threat.”
You can find a TWTD blog assessing Town’s low pass completion rate here.