Defender Luke Chambers sees it as a major part of his role as captain to help inspire the players around him, no more so than in the pre-match huddle when he delivers his words of wisdom prior to kick-off.
Chambers said: "I think it has always been part of my role to lift the boys and I’ve always tried to do it. I think I’m similar to the gaffer and have learned quite a bit from him.
"Win, lose or draw he seems to have the same approach to the lads, which is brilliant and helps the boys to forget what’s gone on before and concentrate on what’s going to happen in the future.
"That’s my job with the lads but they’re a great bunch and don’t really need much. They’ve got a lot of experience and we’re still in a great position. We always believed that we could be involved in the chase for play-off places through to the end of the season.”
Chambers said there was never any sign of panic when Town recently suffered three straight league defeats and the pragmatic approach paid dividends when they won their next two games to move within one point of the play-offs, a position that could improve tonight with victory at bottom club Bolton and if results elsewhere are in Town’s favour.
Chambers added: "When things weren’t going well recently I was just trying to approach the huddle in the same way I have always done.
"You are always going to have difficult times — for example, after we made a great start to the season we then had a bit of a lull. We came back from that and I was saying to the lads, basically, that it was still all to play for.
"There was a time recently when Preston went ahead of us on goal difference but now they are five points behind us. In this division, if you win two or three in a row, it has a massive effect and it is shown by the fact that we are now one point off the play-offs with a game in hand.
"I just kept telling the lads to keep believing and keep doing their jobs individually, plus to concentrate not just for 90 minutes but for 96, 97, or however long we’ve got to play.
"I said that if we did that, did the small details right, we would come out on top and we have done in our last two games.”
Town travel to Bolton with their hosts in crisis both on and off the field, propping up the table and 10 points from safety while new owners wait in the wings to take control of a club crippled with £170 million-plus debts and seemingly destined for League One.
The Trotters were in the Premier League as recently as 2012 and Chambers added: "It’s crazy and with the amount of money that’s involved in football nowadays maybe it’s been a mistake that a few clubs have made when they have been relegated, chucking loads of cash at it.
"Money doesn’t get you anything in this division and it shows how the manager and owner at our club have approached it over the last couple of years. Of course we’d love the excitement of, say, being able to sign half a dozen £6 million players but it’s no guarantee of success.
"You look at Derby, who are up and down at the moment and got rid of their manager after spending about £30 to £35 million.
"Sometimes you have to ask yourself the question — do you want to be one of those clubs or do you want to be a club that is fighting their corner on a sustainable front, giving everything they’ve got and the squad’s not full of prima donnas on X-amount a week and expecting to do it without rolling up their sleeves, as the lads in our dressing room do every week.”
Meanwhile, Chambers was asked about his current ‘goal drought’ after eight games without adding to the three he claimed earlier in the season, taking his overall Town tally to 10 in 181 appearances.
The skipper laughed: "Yes, I’m a little bit concerned. But the gaffer’s been holding me back and maybe that’s had something to do with us keeping clean sheets in successive games.
"I’m always looking to get in there but maybe I’ve been resting a bit in the last couple of games so that I could try to get in at the back post in the last minute.”