Kayden Jackson believes Town are building momentum at the right time, the forward having scored one and assisted another in last night’s 3-0 home victory over his former club Accrington Stanley, the Blues’ fourth win on the bounce.
Town remain five points behind second-placed Plymouth, who came from behind to beat Derby 2-1 at Home Park last night, but are gaining momentum as the season goes into its final straight.
In addition to the four wins, the Blues have kept five consecutive clean sheets and have gone 506 minutes without conceding and are closing in on the record of 592 minutes set at a similar stage of last season.
Jackson, who joined Town from Accrington in the summer of 2018 for £1.6 million, felt it was vital the Blues maintained their winning run against Stanley, who stay 21st following last night’s defeat, ahead of the weekend trip to fifth-placed Bolton Wanderers.
"We knew it was an important game to win,” Jackson said. "Momentum’s been building and we wanted that feeling going into Saturday.
"We knew we needed the confidence going into a big trip, a big game against Bolton on Saturday.
"I think over the course of the season, there have obviously been disappointing results, but I think in the group we’ve always had that confidence, we’ve always had that belief in ourselves.
"The ones when we’ve slipped up, we’ve been as disappointed as everyone else, but you just manage that disappointment and channel it in the right way.
"The boss [Kieran McKenna] has been unbelievable for that. He’s said, ‘Don’t get too high when we win’, even on these winning runs, don’t get too high. And then when we lose, when we draw, disappointing results that we’ve had, he’s said not to get too low.
"We’ve had a good feeling all season and now I think we’re building just at the right time, so hopefully that feeling can help push us into the closing stages.”
Jackson was making his first league start since the 1-1 draw at Lincoln on January 2nd, although had been in the XI for the cup ties with Rotherham and Burnley.
The 29-year-old had a bright opening to the game and laid on the first goal for Nathan Broadhead in the 12th minute.
"It’s always good to start the game on a positive foot and we knew we needed to start well,” he said.
"These Tuesday nights after a big win on the Saturday, sometimes the energy can be low and for whatever reasons we can not have the best of starts. It’s happened a couple of times, so it was nice to start the game positively and personally get the assist.
"To be fair, we were disappointed after the goal, we felt we took our foot off the gas a little bit, got sloppy when we didn’t need to, kept them in the game and gave them something to fight about, which in the end made it probably a more difficult night than it needed to be.”
Jackson netted the Blues’ second of the evening and his fourth of the season in the 56th minute to secure Town’s position, although he thought the Lancastrians never gave up.
"To be fair to them, even after the second goal, I still thought that they were competing for every ball,” he said. "There have been a few teams here this season that have conceded one and two and that’s it.
"They keep you in a game right up until the 90th minute. That’s why a few of the lads are feeling as tired as they are now, myself being one of those.
"It was nice to get it personally and mentally as a team to get that second goal and give ourselves a little bit of breathing space. And just to cap it off with Kyle [Edwards]’s goal was very nice.”
Jackson’s goal came after he followed up his former Swindon teammate Massimo Luongo’s effort which had been deflected onto the bar.
"I think he’s claiming the assist!” Jackson laughed. "I’m sure it won’t be long before he gets on the scoresheet.
"He’s given us everything else in the team, so it’s just good to see him out there doing what he can do.”
The Bradford-born forward is a big fan of the Australian, who he spent the 2013/14 season with at the County Ground, although without featuring alongside Town’s January signing in the first team.
"Going back when I was at Swindon, a helluva long time ago, I think daily I was just a fan of him. I was watching him and I was in complete awe of the way he plays football,” he enthused.
"And he hasn’t lost any of that. He’s obviously wised up a bit as well with the experience that he’s had over the years.
"He’s some player and some addition, to be fair. Sometimes they don’t work out, you bring in players in January that haven’t really been playing and it takes a bit of time to adapt, a bit of time to get up to speed, which it probably did with him. He had the time in the training ground and he’s been more than ready to contribute in the last few games.”
After the game Jackson and Janoi Donacien, who similarly hadn’t made many recent starts, were praised by manager McKenna and the forward says players have to be ready to come into the team when called upon.
"Anything can happen between now and the end of the season,” he said. "Touch wood there’s no injuries but things happen that you’re not in control of.
"The squad that we’ve got at the moment is like none that I’ve ever seen before. The group training today, you look at it and the ability in there, the work ethic in there.
"No one’s giving up and everyone’s tuned in to achieving something that as a group we set out to at the beginning of the season.”"
Jackson felt his old club were a little hard done by with the late red card for keeper Lukas Jensen for upending Harry Clarke, Edwards netting the resultant free-kick.
"I was a long way away, I couldn’t catch up at that point, I was too tired,” he joked. "I did think it was harsh. I haven’t seen it back so that’s all I can say really, I thought it was a little bit harsh.”
The frontman, who was Accrington’s top scorer with 16 goals as they claimed the 2017/18 title, which won him his move to the Blues, has sympathy for his old manager John Coleman but believes Stanley will get themselves out of the relegation zone.
"Of course, I think they’ve got a few suspensions at the minute and he knows that players need to control themselves a bit better,” he reflected.
"But that’s the fine line with Accrington, that’s the fine line with the way they want to play. Everything’s a competition, everything’s on the edge and sometimes it’s a bit too much, as it’s shown recently.
"I feel that they have enough fight in them. Yes, we beat them 3-0 tonight, but I don’t feel like they gave up at any point, whereas there have been a few teams who have come here this season and given up after one or two goals have gone against them.
"I feel that spirit will get them through as well as the quality that they’ll have coming back from suspension and a couple of injuries, so I’m sure they’ll have enough to get out of it.”
Looking ahead to Saturday’s big game at Bolton, he added: "We’re confident as a team, as a group that there’s no game that we go into thinking that we can’t get the win.
"Obviously we need to put the work in like we have been over the last four games especially. Hopefully, we can go into that one on Saturday with a good feeling.”