Town striker Brett Pitman is confident he can beat last season’s goal tally of 11, which was enough to be top scorer at Portman Road.
Pitman broke his duck for the current campaign at Reading on Friday, converting from the spot to make it 1-1 after he was fouled soon after the restart, but the Royals snatched all three points at the death, also from the spot in a game of three penalties.
Pitman said: "If I play enough games I’m sure I will score more than 11 goals. But I have never set targets, because you just don’t know what is going to happen. I’ll score as many as I can.
"It’s always nice to get off the mark but it’s more about performances for me. It’s not all about scoring, although don’t get me wrong as I obviously do want to score goals.
"But if I’m contributing to the team then I’m happy and I thought I did that against Preston even without a goal, and the other night I thought I did that too.
"It was a very disappointing result. To lose any game is tough but to give away a penalty in — the 93rd minute I think it was — is very tough and obviously the lads are gutted like everybody. I think we deserved probably more than what we got.”
But the controversial last-gasp clincher, awarded against Jonas Knudsen as he grappled with Joey van den Berg as a corner came over, could work in Town’s favour at a later date as referees come to terms with exactly how to deal with the type of situation that is commonplace from set pieces.
Pitman was asked if he and his team-mates were aware of what officials are looking for and if he would be looking to claim a penalty if he was on the receiving end of the same sort of treatment.
He responded: "Yes, I think so. But I think all anyone asks for is consistency. We’ve all seen the replay and you could probably say it was a penalty, but like the gaffer said there could have been five or six penalties for us and them in the game, so why has he picked the last minute? We’re not sure but he’s given it, we’ll move on and that’s it.”
Meanwhile, Pitman has admitted his habit of wearing a short-sleeved shirt in the first half of games and swapping it for a long-sleeved version in the second half is down to superstition.
He explained: "Weirdly, I’ve always done that, ever since my debut for Bournemouth. It just turned out that I had one short-sleeved shirt and one long-sleeved shirt, and I’ve always stuck with that.
"It has definitely become a superstition and I feel more comfortable playing in a long-sleeved shirt in the second half. There’s no other reason for it, that’s just how it is.”