Town boss Mick McCarthy believes the Blues making the play-offs this season would be a greater achievement than reaching them last year given the way that 2015/16 has progressed.
"Where we’ve been and how we’ve fluctuated in terms of results and performances at times, it will be now because we’re out of them [in ninth] and there are some good teams who have spent a few quid around us as well,” he said.
"There are also a few teams who have spent a few quid a lot lower than us.
"If you consider some of the deals that Sheffield Wednesday have done, Middlesbrough have done, Derby have done, Burnley have done, Hull have done, Cardiff still with their Premier League money, I think we’ve really scrapped it out and given a good account of ourselves. But I still want to get in the top six, that’s our aim, of course.”
The Blues are perhaps viewed as underdogs in the promotion race, but that doesn’t concern their manager.
"Do I like the underdog tag? It’s been nailed on my forehead all throughout my career!” he said. "I’m not trying to shed it, I’m not trying to promote it, it doesn’t worry me at all.
"Whatever tag somebody wants to label me with, so be it. I don’t change from week to week because we’ve won one and lost one and suddenly become something different. I am consistent in how I approach it and we’re still being competitive.”
Does he feel he receives the credit he deserves for his achievements in the game? "It doesn’t worry me whether people give me credit or not. They’ll say to me about my playing career. I had a great playing career in my head.
"We’ve been talking about Andre Dozzell. I was 16 and I was thinking, I’ll get in the Barnsley team and hopefully I’ll do well and I’ll go somewhere else.
"I got in the Barnsley team and I had 272 league games, ended up playing 500 league games, won promotion a number of times, the cup and the league in Scotland with Celtic, I played in the European Championship and a World Cup finals for Ireland. I captained them in the quarter-final of the World Cup.
"That was my career. I remember two kids who were at Arsenal, they were just young boys, and they said ‘Did you play football? What did you do?’. So I told them and they were like that with their gobs open.
"It’s what I think about what I’ve done, not what anybody else thinks. I’ve been sat here and been asked ‘Do you worry about being labelled a good Championship manager?’. Do I hell! Ten months is the average tenure. I’ve been here nearly four years. My shortest job has been three years anywhere.
"If I’ve been one of the top 20 or 30 managers for the last 20 years, why should I worry? I don’t worry what anybody thinks. I get on, I look after my family and, do you know what else, I don’t half enjoy it, it’s great.”