Town captain Luke Chambers says last season’s seventh place finish was by no means the “bit of a disaster” it has been made out to be in some quarters and believes the Blues will benefit greatly from Teddy Bishop and David McGoldrick available during the campaign ahead.
Bishop, who recently turned 20, only featured in the final weeks of the season after suffering a succession of injuries, most significantly a hamstring problem.
McGoldrick tore his hamstring in December and also only came back into the first team for the last couple of games.
Chambers believes Bishop has the talent to go a very long way in the game: "Teddy could be anything if he keeps his head on his shoulders and listens to the people who can influence him at the football club in a positive way.
"He could be earning 50 grand a week in a year’s time in my opinion, he could be absolutely anything.
"As long as we can pass him the ball to his feet, hopefully we’ll see the best of him in the next few months.
"David McGoldrick’s another one, we missed Didzy last year, we missed Bish. Last season, if you put them into our team maybe that takes us to sixth.
"We finished seventh last year. We’ve been made to feel that it was a bit of a disaster, but I think in terms of what was spent by the football club and with the budget we’ve got, the gaffer’s performed absolute miracles over the last two years.
"You can understand the frustrations of fans maybe, that we want to be up there in the top six, but no team has got a divine right and all we can do is continue to improve from last year and give ourselves the best chance to achieve the top six again.”
He believes finishing seventh last year has been undervalued with the Blues in mid-table wages-wise and having paid little in transfer fees: "When you sit back and look at it, considering where we are, we should be nowhere near that. We’ve performed miracles.
"Yes, we might not have played the best football at times but at the end of the day football is about results and we finished seventh and we were very, very disappointed not to make the play-offs, but unfortunately we didn’t have quite enough.
"But with Bishop, with McGoldrick coming back, we’ve added Webster, hopefully we’ll bring a few more in, they’re going to be big players for us this year if we can keep them fit.”
In addition to Bishop, McGoldrick and Webster, Andre Dozzell, Town’s scorer in Saturday’s 1-1 friendly draw at Cambridge, has visibly grown in confidence during pre-season, having made two appearances for the first team towards the end of last season when he netted a debut goal at Sheffield Wednesday.
"It’s always going to be the way, he’s a 17-year-old boy coming in and playing with men and Championship football,” 30-year-old Chambers added.
"He can’t compare that to anything he’s ever experienced on a Saturday on an U18s pitch or in an U21s game on a Tuesday night when there are 30 people watching.
"It’s a completely different way of football and the Championship is like no other division, physically it’s very demanding and he'll get that. If you’ve seen the size of his dad he’ll end up being a big boy.
"He’s graceful on the ball, the way he put the ball away today was fantastic, he’s showed some brilliant touches on the ball, his awareness on the ball, you can’t speak highly enough of him.
"He’s very, very young and it’s a brilliant thing to be a part of his development and trying to help him through. He’s very, very willing to learn and listen and I’m sure in the next couple of seasons he’ll be a big player for us.”
Chambers says he and the rest of the squad would welcome further signings: "It would be extra help, extra competition for places. There’s no one in the squad that should be happy without competition. We need competition all over the pitch and I think we’ve got that in most areas.
"No one’s got a divine right to start football matches, so everyone knows they’ve got to work, especially with the gaffer. If you don’t put the work in in pre-season and in training every week, you won’t be playing.
"The lads are trying to improve every day and you need competition. Maybe [we were hit by] the lack of squad size last year when there were injuries to the likes of Bishop, McGoldrick, Murphy at times, they’re massive players for us.
"Maybe the likes of Derby or whoever spending £30 million have got three or four in reserve that are a similar level to the players they’re losing out on, that’s the difference, but that’s what we’re up against.
"As the gaffer says, we know the remit and we’re just ready to prove a few people wrong again this year.”
He says gaffer Mick McCarthy doesn’t involve him when he’s making signings: "Not particularly because I know how difficult it is for us to sign players at the moment.
"He just says, ‘Don’t ask me about players’. I said, ‘I’m not asking you, I’ve learnt that, I’ve been with him long enough now'. And when they walk in through the door I’ll be the first one to say hello.”
Meanwhile, Chambers spent some time earlier in the summer working on his coaching badges in Northern Ireland.
"I’m trying to get my badges ready for the transition but that’s a long way off,” he said. "I just wanted to be ahead of the game really.
"It’s becoming more and more difficult, there are more and more obstacles being put in players’ way when trying to make that transition into coaching.
"I thought it was about time to settle down and maybe sacrifice a couple of weeks in the summer and I’m on the right path and I’m at the right club if I then want to continue to do something in the future.”