While Town wideman Wes Burns believes 2022 was a good year for him and the club, he is entering a new one today feeling confident that there is a lot that can potentially be achieved in 2023.
Despite the mood being livened considerably by manager Kieran McKenna’s arrival in mid-December 2021, almost 13 months ago, the Blues were destined to fail in the race for the play-offs and instead the focus switched to the current campaign, in which the team has performed extremely well most of the time.
Burns, 28, said: "It’s been a good year all round, I think. We’re all well aware that we’re heading in the right direction and it’s quite evident to see in our results, style of play and the backing of the fans.
"I think they are on board with what’s going on at the club and everyone can see the identity. Looking forward into 2023, I would say this is a very good place to be.”
Asked how confident he was that Town can complete the job and secure promotion back to the Championship after five years in League One, the Welshman added: "Very confident. Like I’ve just said, with the infrastructure and the style of play we have here, the squad, the coaching staff, the boss, I think everything is there for us to go and achieve what we have set out to achieve.”
Having occupied one of the two automatic promotion places for most of the season, and losing just three of their 24 league games, does Burns believe Town can improve still further during the second half of the league campaign?
He said: "Yes, definitely. I think at times we can get a little bit stuck in playing — how do I say this? I think we can be better in terms of figuring out how to win games when teams set out to completely nullify what we want to do.
"We work on different things like that on the training ground every day and I think it’s just identifying different teams’ set-ups from game to game, because it’s not easy. We obviously plan for teams to do various things against us but when it comes to the game, they do something completely different.
"That’s credit to us and total respect to us because teams are changing their style of play just to nullify us, which is the ultimate respect in the game of football.”
Meanwhile, Burns reflected on his omission from the 26-strong Wales squad in Qatar for the recent World Cup finals. "Leading up to it — and I think I said this in a previous interview — I was 50-50 about the whole thing,” he said.
"If I went it would have been an unbelievable experience for me and I would have relished going, and if I didn’t, I knew I had a job to do here at Ipswich.
"Even if I missed out on Qatar, I played games for Ipswich and we’re in a brilliant spot to do what we set out to do.
"I mean now, having watched the tournament on television, it’s probably better that I didn’t go to be honest because I’ve played my part here at Ipswich and, like I’ve said, we’re in a good spot.”
Cardiff-born Burns has also been reassured about his international future, adding: "I spoke to the boss [Rob Page] at Wales. He rang me before the squad was announced, which was obviously, again, a great respect thing from him.
"He didn’t have to do that. I’d only been named in a couple of camps beforehand, so massive respect to him for that, giving me a call and explaining why I wasn’t going to be selected.
"He said the plan going forward, as long as I’m playing well and doing what I have been doing at Ipswich, is that I’ll be involved.”