Midfielder Teddy Bishop couldn’t recall even scoring a header in training prior to nodding home the opener in yesterday’s 2-0 victory over Wigan Athletic at Portman Road, only the 24-year-old’s second senior goal and his first since November 2014.
Bishop’s only other first-team goal came in a 2-2 draw at AFC Bournemouth in November 2014 during his breakthrough season as an 18-year-old as the Blues went on to reach the play-offs.
"It’s been a long time coming, just delighted to see it hit the back of the net and hopefully I can add that to my game this year,” Bishop said afterwards.
Did he expect his second goal to be a header? "I don’t think I’ve ever scored a header in training, let alone a game, so I’m absolutely delighted.
"As a midfielder you need to add that to your game. I work on stuff like that in training all the time so just happy to see it pay off.
"We’ve worked on arriving in the box at the right time and I think I did that. I didn’t expect the ball to come to me, I think it was a mis-kick [by the defender]. But when it comes to you you’ve got to take your chance and thankfully I did today.
"It’s crucial for an attacking midfielder to score goals. I don’t think I can quite call myself an attacking midfielder unless I score and create goals.
"I’ve created goals before but definitely adding goals has been at the back of my mind. It’s always been something I’ve needed to do.
"I’ve scored goals at U23 level, I know it’s not the same, but they’re in there somewhere, it’s bringing them out now.
"It’s confidence as well, now I’ve got one hopefully I’ll be more confident in front of goal and I’ll get into those positions more.”
Bishop believes the 4-3-3 system the Blues are employing this season requires goals from the midfield trio: "You can’t put it all on your front three to score goals, if you’re going to get promoted you need goals from everywhere.
"Nolo [Jon Nolan] gets a few goals, so we’ve got goalscorers in the team we just all need to start playing our part.”
Bishop says he was disappointed that there were no fans at Portman Road to celebrate his goal with: "We’re missing them, so hopefully they’ll all be back soon.”
The Cambridge-born schemer was very close to a second of the afternoon later on in the first half when a low strike hit the post.
"I thought it was a brace!” he laughed. "I was right behind it, I was pretty sure the keeper got a touch on it and touched it on to the post. I just need to get into those positions more this year and hopefully I can start burying them.”
Reflecting on the team's overall performance against the Latics, he added: "I think we’ll play better than that this season but we got the job done. We defended ugly when we needed to. We knew what kind of presence they’d bring.
"It wasn’t our best performance but a win’s a win. We still played some nice stuff and we have to take that forward.”
The academy product felt Town ought to have scored more than just the two goals: "We should have. Fair play to the gaffer because we’ve worked a lot on patterns of play in training and I think slowly they’re starting to come into the games, something maybe we didn’t do towards the end of last year.
"We just need to carry that on, keep working hard in training and keep performing.”
He believes the Blues have made progress over the course of their three matches so far this season: "Definitely, they’re all different games. If you look at this one compared to Tuesday night against resale’s U21s, it’s a completely different game. We knew how to set up and I thought the defence was really good today, dealt with everything that came into the box.”
Bishop’s fitness struggles since that 2014/15 campaign have been well documented, however, he is hopeful all that is now behind him.
"I feel really good," he continued. "I know I’ve said it before last year and then I got a freak injury but within myself I feel really good, so I just need to stay fit and stay in the team.”
He knows that he has been written off in some quarters as someone who is always injured, but he feels that the efforts put in by players in that situation are often overlooked.
"I don’t blame people for saying that, it’s true, but no one knows the hard work which goes in when you are injured,” he said.
"I did a lot of work last year and then to come back in pre-season and get a freak injury was really, really demoralising.
"But I worked hard again, came back and then I’ve worked hard again over lockdown and hopefully that will pay off now.”
He says being out for long spells is a test of spirit: "It is and you get labelled this, labelled that, but you’ve just got to keep your family around you, your friends and you’ve just got to get through it really.”
And it can be tough to read some of the comments made on social media: "I try not to read it but sometimes you come across it and it’s not nice. But fans are entitled to their opinion and hopefully I can prove a few wrong that doubted me.
"When you’re injured you do more hours than anyone that’s fit. It’s not even a physical battle, it’s more mentally. It is really tough. I take my hat off to anyone who comes back from a long-term injury because it is really hard.”
And he says days like Sunday when you score a vital goal in an important win are the prize at the end of all that hard work.
"It’s the sort of thing that makes it all worth it, when you come back and score,” he said.
"For me I just want to play loads of games this year, just enjoy playing because there are certain times when you come back from injury and you don’t want to get injured again, so I just want to stay in the team and just enjoy playing my football."