Town visit to Charlton Athletic on Saturday with manager Kieran McKenna aiming to end a busy period of fixtures on a high note before a brief break in the League One programme for the FA Cup.
The Blues visit the Valley having won their last two, Friday’s 1-0 home win against Derby having been followed-up by the 3-2 victory at Port Vale on Tuesday.
Town are second, two points behind leaders Plymouth, but now five in front of third-placed Sheffield Wednesday following the Owls' 1-1 home draw with Bristol Rovers on Wednesday. The Blues are also now 14 points in front of Exeter in seventh, the first spot outside the play-offs.
McKenna is pleased with the way the Blues came through what’s been a busy October during which time they’ve had a number of first-team squad regulars sidelined, among them skipper Sam Morsy, who missed the trip to Vale Park as he was serving a one-match ban for a fifth yellow card.
"We looked at the calendar a few weeks ago and we knew we had a really busy couple of weeks and this is the last game of that spell before we have nine days before we play Bracknell [in the FA Cup] on the Monday night,” he said.
"This is the end of a busy spell and a busy spell that we’ve navigated without the usual depth of numbers that we would have.
"It’s been all hands on deck, we’ve had Cameron Burgess and Panutche Camara back in the squad much quicker than we would possibly have liked, to be fair, in terms of how much they’ve trained, and young [Cameron] Humphreys has stepped up to the mark massively as well to help us.
"So I think we’ve navigated the busy period really well and we want to finish that off well on Saturday in a really big and tough game and go with everything we can to try and get a result.
"And then after that, of course, it’s a period where we can give the players a couple of days to recover and then have some much-needed and valuable time on the training pitch.”
McKenna will be able to call on captain Morsy on Saturday and believes the Egyptian international will have benefited from the rest.
"He’s had a good full training week, so that’s a positive and he’ll be fresh and hungry going into Saturday,” the Blues boss continued.
"Good for the other boys to step up in his absence, but we know how important he is for us.
"But it’s unlikely that any of the outfielders are going to play 46 league games, so we’re going to have to step up with different players at different times and we managed to do that without Sam on Tuesday night and it keeps him fresh and ready to go on Saturday.”
Charlton are eighth in League One, 14 points behind the Blues. They were beaten 2-0 by MK Dons at home on Tuesday having been reduced to 10 men when Ryan Inniss - who will be suspended for Saturday's game - was dismissed.
Before that, however, they had won their previous three - including a 3-0 live-on-Sky victory over Portsmouth at the Valley - and were unbeaten in five in the league, having gone seven games without a win prior to their improved spell. At home this season in League One they have won four - among them an August 5-1 thrashing of leaders Argyle - drawn three and lost only Tuesday's game against the Dons.
"I think they’ve been good performance-wise and I’m sure their manager would say the same,” McKenna said.
"I think they’re second in the league on most possession metrics behind ourselves and they play good football, keep the ball well, are progressive in how they play.
"And, from what I’ve seen, I think they weren’t always getting the results that some of their play deserved.
"But they’ve picked up lately, had the really good result against Portsmouth and a disappointing one the other night but MK are a very good team also.
"As I keep saying, it’s still a third of the way through the season, the league table does tell lies at this stage. Things will change definitely over the next few months and we can’t worry too much about what position teams are in before we face them, it’s about looking at their strengths and their weaknesses and Charlton definitely have some strengths we need to be aware of.
"And respecting each opponent and knowing that it’s not going to be anything other than a really tough challenge on Saturday.”
He added: "Their creation from open play is pretty good as well, so it’ll be a good football match between two good footballing teams who like to play in a positive manner.
"A good pitch as well and a big stadium, so another great game. We’ve had some really good games this year, the level of the league is really high, the challenges are vastly different but varied in number.
"Another really good game to look forward to against a good footballing team and, we hope, a good match.”
McKenna says he’s not crossed paths with Addicks boss Ben Garner previously: "No, not someone I’ve come across before. He did very well with Swindon last year and I managed to see quite a lot of them, they did very well in the league and also had a good run in the cup.
"Obviously a good job for him, a big job for him. I understand the challenges and pressures he’ll have there because in some ways they’re not a million miles off the position that Ipswich has been in; they’re not in the league that they want to be in and they’ve had a couple of seasons in League One that haven’t gone as well as they would have wanted as well.
"So I understand the challenges and pressures that he will face and it’s a really big job and I wish him well, but certainly not for this Saturday.”
Among those wearing red and white at the Valley is likely to be midfielder Scott Fraser, who left Portman Road for Charlton in January following half a season with the Blues after a summer 2021 move from MK Dons.
"Scott is a very good player, a very good player at this level, in good form for Charlton and a good person and a good professional in my short interactions with him,” McKenna said.
"When I arrived, he was in a frustrated position of his move not having gone as he had hoped it would and was extremely keen to get playing regularly and being the main man in a team and he wanted to pursue that elsewhere rather than to wait and try and force his way into what he felt was a really competitive squad and a squad that was loaded in the positions that he wanted to play in.
"Of course, the club got a suitable offer from Charlton that they club was happy with and Scott wanted to pursue and that’s what he did and we wish him all the best for his career, but again, not on Saturday against us!”
Town fans won’t need reminding that last December’s visit to the Valley was one of the season’s low points, a 2-0 defeat a few days after former manager Paul Cook’s sacking with John McGreal in his first match as interim boss. At the end there was an angry confrontation between centre-half Toto Nsiala and members of the crowd.
"I don’t know too much about the backdrop to that game,” said McKenna, who took charge just over a week later. "I know it was a bad result and not a performance that the guys were happy with.
"It’s a different team, lots of different players, a different momentum and a different energy.
"It’s going to be a really difficult game again, that’s for sure. Just because we’re going into it in a better run it doesn’t mean it’s going to be any easier and the supporters have been absolutely fantastic home and away.”
Christian Walton will continue in goal and McKenna may well stick with Janoi Donacien, Luke Woolfenden and George Edmundson at the back and Leif Davis and Wes Burns in the wide roles.
Morsy will come back into central midfield with Cameron Humphreys set to drop to the bench after his eye-catching full league debut at Vale Park with Dominic Ball taking the other role with Lee Evans out for a number of weeks with a knee problem.
McKenna is again likely to switch his front three around to a greater or lesser extent with Marcus Harness perhaps returning in one of the number 10 roles along with Tyreece John-Jules and Kayden Jackson the lone central striker, with Kyle Edwards, Freddie Ladapo and Conor Chaplin likely to be used from the bench in the second half if that is the case.
For the Addicks, Inniss is banned following his red card - his second of the season and fourth in 41 games league games since moving to the Valley in 2020 - while midfielder Corey Blackett-Taylor has been absent from the last two matches with a hip flexor problem but is set to be OK for Saturday.
Striker Miles Leaburn and forward Diallang Jaiyesimi remain sidelined with ankle injuries.
Town just have the edge historically having won 24 games (20 in the league), Charlton 20 (17) and with 12 (11) ending in draws.
On the final day of last season at Portman Road, Burns scored twice and Tyreeq Bakinson and James Norwood once each as Town thrashed Charlton 4-0.
Bakinson gave the Blues the lead with a superb strike on seven, Burns added the second four minutes later, then scored the third five minutes into the second half, before the departing Norwood signed off with the fourth with two minutes remaining.
At the Valley in December last year, interim manager McGreal’s first game in charge of the Blues ended in a dismal 2-0 defeat to Charlton.
The Addicks went in front on 26 via Jayden Stockley before Alex Gilbey sealed the points late on, however, but for goalkeeping heroics from Walton the margin of defeat might have been more comfortable.
Blues striker Joe Pigott, who is on loan at Portsmouth for the season, began his career with the Addicks and made four starts and 12 sub appearances without scoring having made his debut in August 2013 before moving on in the summer of 2016 following a number of loan spells.
Midfielder Fraser joined Charlton from the Blues in January having only moved to Town from the MK Dons last summer.
The Scot made 18 starts and two sub appearances for the Blues, scoring his only goal on his debut at home to Morecambe on the opening day of last season.
Addicks keeper Stephen Henderson made 24 starts for the Blues on loan at Town under Mick McCarthy’s management during 2013/14. The Irishman has made only five appearances for the South Londoners having joined them in September.
Midfielder Forster-Caskey is the stepson of former Blues striker Nicky Forster.
Saturday’s referee is Josh Smith from Bedfordshire, who has shown 58 yellow cards and two red in 12 games so far this season.
Smith’s most recent Town match was the 4-0 win at Portsmouth in October last year in which he booked Edmundson, Morsy and two home players, one of them Harness, who left Pompey for the Blues in the summer.
Prior to that he was the man in the middle for the 2-2 home draw with the MK Dons in August last year in which he booked Woolfenden, Kane Vincent-Young and one visiting player.
His only previous Town match before that was the 2-1 EFL Trophy defeat away at Exeter in January 2020 in which he again booked Woolfenden, as well as Toto Nsiala, Will Keane and one Grecian.
Squad from: Walton, Hladky, Donacien, Woolfenden, Edmundson, Keogh, Burgess, Burns, Vincent-Young, Davis, Morsy, Ball, Humphreys, Camara, Harness, Edwards, Chaplin, John-Jules, Ladapo, Jackson.