A frustrating week for Ipswich Town ended with a 1-1 draw at Morecambe, but Blues captain Sam Morsy has seen enough from the last two games to believe that the Blues can still finish in the top six.
Town dominated the game at the Mazuma Stadium with 72 per cent possession but a mixture of opportunities which were either saved by Trevor Carson or squandered - aside from Wes Burns’s late equaliser to Aaron Wildig’s against-the-run-of-play opener for the Shrimps - meant they couldn’t turn their superiority into three points.
A single point for the second time in five days - Town drew 0-0 at home to Cheltenham on Tuesday - means Kieran McKenna’s ninth-placed side sit five points from Sheffield Wednesday in sixth, having played more games than the Owls, Wycombe and Plymouth directly above them.
However, with 11 matches remaining, Morsy insists there is still plenty left to play for, with the Blues a cutting edge away from putting a winning run together.
"Absolutely, of course, it is,” Morsy said when asked if a top-six finish is still on. "We’re going to have to put wins together and we know that. We’re going to have to get scoring and find that last touch, but if we do that, we’re going to be a real force.
"Every time we don’t get three points, we’re going to feel it. But there’s a lot of belief that if we play like that nine times out of 10, we’ll win. I genuinely believe that, but we’ve got to keep going.
"You could see how the manager has got us playing. If you were a neutral, you’d probably say this is a proper team. If you take yourself out and watch the clips you think ‘Wow!’. But obviously, there is loads to get better and we’re still improving.
"The gaffer has only been here for 12 games, so it’s still early doors, but you can see how much we’re improving all the time and we’re starting to look like a really good team, but we just have to put wins together now which I think we can.”
Despite going behind to sub Wildig’s 59th-minute goal, there was no panic from Town, who continued to play the same way rather than showing signs of panic.
"The gaffer is trying to get it into us to stick to the game plan, keep doing what we’re doing, and his ambition is to be a really strong football club,” Morsy continued.
"And all the top teams keep doing what they are doing. If Plan A isn’t working, they don’t suddenly try something else, they keep doing it and hammer it home, and in the end, it comes good. So we kept doing what we’re doing and we kept getting the chances.
"Wes is in great goalscoring form and has been a really top player for us. He got another goal today, great for him and then we had so many good opportunities to win the game.
"On Tuesday, I think the manager said it was the best half of the season in the first half and I would probably say it was even better than that today, to be fair.
"We had great opportunities; we had good opportunities from shots, from crosses, from pullbacks, clear-cut chances, long-range efforts. We had every sort of chance today.
"Like the save from JD [Janoi Donacien] that he [Carson] made, then two top corner saves. Macca [Macauley Bonne] missed a few you’d want to score, and then Nors [James Norwood] has a chance, and then Macca has the follow-up and there were so many. Santi [Bersant Celina] has the one in the bottom corner and he makes the save, and no one is there to tap it in.
"The keeper has had the game of his life. He’ll be putting that on all of his social media and I’m sure trying to get a move from this game today!
"You just have to keep believing and keep getting better, and we’ll have a really good week of training ready for a three-game week next week.”
Morsy himself was among those to have chances and he knows if there is any chance to clinching sixth that he and others are going to have to pitch in with goals.
"It’s the hardest thing in football putting the ball in the net, but we had really clear-cut opportunities,” he continued.
"Obviously, I had a close one as well and goals are something I want to add to my game in the run-in. Other individuals need to start scoring as well because we need to start scoring.
"I thought [my shot] was in and then on the rebound, we probably should have scored as well, but we had so many like that as well. Credit to their goalkeeper, he’s had the game of his life, to be fair.
"If you keep running in the box, you’ll get a chance, you’ll get a tap in, you’ll get goals, and I’ve got to continue to do that. And we’ve just got to continue doing what we’re doing because there won’t be many teams who play better today.
"I guarantee you that across any of the divisions, really, when you look at the chances created and how we played. But the most important thing we couldn’t get today.
"They defended fairly well but I think the keeper mainly. But it’s that little bit of individual class and that demand and the players taking that responsibility and being the one to win us the game, and that’s what we’re looking for at the moment.
"I think as a team in between both boxes, I think we’re absolutely fantastic and defending-wise we’ve been fantastic as well, but we just need to start scoring goals.”
At the back, the Blues conceded for the first time in six games at Morcambe, extending their time without conceding to a new club record 592 minutes.
"It’s really good,” the Egyptian international continued when asked about the defensive form.
"We’re not going to overreact with the back lads and whatever [regarding the goal] because it’s a really good header as well to be fair, it definitely can happen.
"But we didn’t look like conceding other than that. I don’t think they had any spells in the game. It was incredible really how much we attacked and how much of the ball we had. To be fair they did work really hard and gave everything they had and so did we to be fair, but we couldn’t get that win.”