Town boss Mick McCarthy says he’s been delighted with the way the season has gone so far, but admits he was anxious going into last week’s banana skin home fixture against bottom of the table Bolton Wanderers.
"I’m delighted with how it’s gone,” he reflected on the season’s opening few weeks with his team fifth, two points off the top with a game in hand, despite significant illness and injury problems.
"If you’d asked me if I’d have taken five wins and two defeats out of the seven games, I would have, of course.
"If we could be in the top five going to play Leeds at the top of the table, I’d be thrilled.
"But as I said to somebody the other day, only 39 to play. There’s a lot of ups and downs between now and May. But absolutely thrilled with how it’s gone so far, it’s been pretty good.”
However, looking back to Saturday’s 2-0 victory against the Trotters, he added: ”I was worried to death about Bolton last week. I was anxious just before the game. I wasn’t looking forward to it because it was a game I thought we had to win if we were going to maintain our relationship with the supporters and the fans and keep ourselves in the top six, certainly.
"And I knew it wouldn’t be an easy game. As soon as you get a ‘must-win game’, which pretty much that was for us, bearing in mind our position and their position, it was an anxious game.
"And that’s how it turned out to be in the first half, and in the second half we were much better.”
Last season in a similar fixture against Rotherham, who occupied bottom spot for the whole of last season, the Millers were seconds away from recording what would have been their only away win of the season, David McGoldrick netting a last-gasp equaliser in a 2-2 draw.
McCarthy says Town's greater potency up front has made them better equipped to win games they might not have last term.
"We have been over seven games because we’ve won five and lost two and I hope that’s going to continue, that’s the issue going forward,” McCarthy added.
"Even at QPR, despite us having a limp-wristed second half, we nicked a goal and we could have nicked something out of the game.
"Up until now we’ve had more goals in us and we look like we’ve more goals in us, so let’s hope it continues.”
Since last week’s game stats have circulated showing table-propping Bolton actually hit more shots than the Blues - 16 to 13 - during the game, but McCarthy says numbers alone don’t always tell the whole story and that there are only a couple of stats which really matter to him.
"I see the stats every week and there’ll be some weeks there’s a team had 500-odd passes and we’ve had 205, and we’ve beaten them,” he said.
"It’s what you do with the ball ultimately. Bolton had good stats last week, they put a lot of balls in our box but Bart didn’t really make that many saves.
"It was a close game. If they’d have scored first, who knows, I thought they were decent. I don’t think they’re mugs and I said here on the Friday that they’ve got a squad full of a well-worn Championship players.
"I know afterwards they felt a little bit hard done by but you’ve got to put the ball in the net, it doesn’t matter how many [shots you have].
"I would say if people have a lot of shots and crosses in the box, I look at my defence and think, ‘Wow, we headed a lot out, we blocked some, we blocked them before they were really good chances’.
"I can look at stats both ways. I’m adept at using them when I want to prove something to somebody as well.”
He added: "Me being the pragmatist that I am, you know that the only stats that really matter to me are how many goals we got and how many goals the opposition did or didn’t get. Love me or loathe me for being a pragmatist, that’s just the way it is.”