Town assistant manager Martyn Pert felt Marcus Harness’s two early goals allowed the Blues to settle as they thrashed Northampton 6-0 in the Papa Johns Trophy at Portman Road.
Marcus Harness netted twice and Greg Leigh, Cameron Burgess, George Edmundson and Freddie Ladapo once each as Town romped to their highest ever victory in the competition.
"Always nice in those types of games when you get an early goal, and we got a couple of early goals and it really did allow the players to feel themselves into the game because obviously we made 11 changes,” he said.
"And you can see by the results in the rest of the tournament, you’ve got Portsmouth and Sheffield Wednesday, who have made changes as well and they haven’t had similar results.
"It was good that the lads all changed and just got into the flow of it straight away. The early goal helps with that and I think we got a good performance from the lads.”
Harness was denied a goal by a poor refereeing decision at the weekend, so Pert was delighted for the summer signing from Portsmouth, who has now netted five times since his switch.
"I think he had one at the weekend which was pretty fair, so it was nice for him to get a couple of goals,” the Blues assistant boss continued.
"He’s in a good bit of form in terms of his goalscoring and his performances as well. You expect him to score goals and it was a nice goal at the weekend as well, it was a shame that one.”
Quizzed on whether the challenge as he scored tonight was more of a foul than the one on Saturday, Pert laughed: "You can say that! He’s done well, great lad, great lad in training, he’s really settled in.”
The negative aspect of the evening was Conor Chaplin picking up a knock in the warm-up and Sone Aluko coming off just before half-time with a painful-looking knee problem.
"That was more of a precautionary one in that he felt something so we were able to make the adjustment on the bench, therefore not put him at risk any more,” Pert said regarding Chaplin. "We’ll see in the morning, I can’t give you any more on that.
"Sone, very hard to say at the moment, but he’s not one that normally goes down, I would say that, and he was down and then he came off. We’ll have a look in the morning, I don’t think it’s days with that one, but we’ll see.
"Chaplin felt something in his groin, I couldn’t tell you what it is, he just felt something and with Sone it was on the outside of his knee, but I couldn’t diagnose what ligament or whatever, just the outside of his knee.”
Dominic Ball also appeared to be hampered by a knock towards the end and Pert says replacing the debutant was considered.
"In the second minute, he turned out on his right foot to go out the other side of the pitch and somebody came into his thigh, so he’s got a dead leg but he’s just battled on through it the whole game,” he said.
"We were talking about bringing him off with 10 minutes to go but he wanted to get the 90 minutes into his legs, which shows what sort of character he is, which is great going forward.”
Manager Kieran McKenna said at the weekend that he is looking to progress in the competition while experimenting with his squad.
"You say experiment,” Pert reflected. "I think we’ve really got a good squad, so it’s good to get the players who haven’t played so much some minutes and get everyone minutes on the pitch, but we have a good enough squad to go through each game and try and win each game in this tournament, so we’ll see how we go.”
He added: "I think they’re competitive, the players are all competitive and fighting for places in the team, so we’ve got a good squad and, like I said, Portsmouth, Sheffield Wednesday and others have changed and maybe not got the same sort of result, which shows the depth and the quality and the performance.”
Pert was pleased for Ladapo, who opened his Town account with his injury time goal: "His performances have been good and if you’re a striker you want to score goals. I’m sure he’s really pleased, and it was a good finish as well, wasn’t it? It was nice finish, it came across him and he tucked it in the opposite side, a nice finish. Pleased for him.”
Similarly, he was pleased for Kyle Edwards, who picked up three assists: "Kyle’s got quality, hasn’t he, he’s got that one-v-one, we saw that with Greg’s goal where he’s stood the guy up and chop, chop, chop and then he’s put a good cross to the byline, so that was a great assist that one. Pleased with that.”
Youngster Cameron Humphreys again impressed in midfield and Pert agreed that the 18-year-old doesn’t look out of place in the first team.
"Not at all, not at all,” he said. "Obviously there are moments when he looks young, but he’s very mature in his temperament and you can see that in the way he plays.
"He’s got a great temperament, good mentality as a professional and think that showed in his performance tonight. I thought he got better and better as the game went on, grew and grew and grew.”
Fellow academy graduates Zanda Siziba and Fraser Alexander came off the bench having caught the eye in the U21s.
"Yes, and we often do sessions where maybe it’s the day after a game where we’ll bring players up from the 21s group and they’ve both done well when they’ve come up, so it’s sort of a reward for that really,” Pert continued.
"I’m pleased for them to get on the pitch, pleased for them to get minutes. Zanda obviously got more minutes than we thought he would get initially but he did well in those minutes and then Fraser coming on as well, so it was good for him to get on there as well.”
Town are top of the group following tonight's victory ahead of Arsenal's U21s on goal difference, the Gunners' youngsters having beaten Cambridge 2-0 at the Abbey Stadium in this evening's other Southern Group H fixture.