Town top scorer Conor Chaplin is confident that he and his colleagues have got last week’s shock FA Cup defeat by non-league Maidstone United out of their system ahead of tomorrow’s Championship visit to Preston North End.
Nine-goal Chaplin, a second-half sub last weekend, faced up to questions about the game that saw the National League South club win 2-1 at Portman Road in what many people – and the record books – suggest was the club’s biggest defeat in the 87 years since they turned professional.
With the part-time Stones 98 places below the Blues in the English pyramid it was expected to be a comfortable passage through to the fifth round for Town, but instead it was the men from Kent who advanced to earn a trip to Sheffield Wednesday or Coventry in the next stage.
Chaplin, who turns 27 in a fortnight, admitted: "It was a tough afternoon and evening, and I think a result like that definitely spills into your Sunday and Monday as well for sure.
"It’s not nice but, at the same time, it’s football and we’ve not had too many of them in the last 18 months to two years at all.
"When we have had a bad day, I think we’ve reacted really well, so it hasn’t been spoken about since Monday and everyone is looking to the next one. That’s what it’s got to be. It was a tough afternoon but it has been put to bed and it’s on to the next one.”
The Blues head for Lancashire eager to reignite their promotion bid and stay ahead of nearest challengers Southampton and Leeds, who are in action at Bristol City this evening when victory will take them into second place behind runaway leaders Leicester, at least until the action at Deepdale gets under way at 3pm tomorrow.
Asked if the players were fully over the Maidstone defeat, Chaplin added: "Yes, like I said, it hasn’t been spoken about since Monday and there’s no need to talk about it anymore.
"There’s not much learning we can take from the game. I think it was a freak game; we weren’t clinical enough on the day and that’s the bottom line, the overriding reason why we got knocked out.”
Despite their huge disappointment on the day, the Town players took it on the chin and Chaplin was accompanied by Sone Aluko when he went to the visitors’ dressing room afterwards to congratulate manager George Elokobi and his players on their success.
Chaplin, who handed over his number 10 shirt to opposing midfielder Sam Bone, said: "We didn’t feel as if we had to do it but we thought it was probably the right thing to do. They deserved it on the day – they took their chances and we didn’t.
"I feel like we’ve had a lot of good days in the past two years and I think it’s just as important how you act when you have a really bad day.
"You’ve got to be gracious and humble in defeat as well, definitely, and for those lads it was one of the best days of their life, well their footballing lives.
"I think you need to appreciate how big a thing it is for them. We knew that before the game – it wasn’t something that we weren’t aware of – but once the game’s done and dusted, and you can’t change the result and you can’t change missing a header or a shot, you need to understand how big a day it was for the Maidstone lads and it shows a lot from our boys just to be willing to do that.”
With a line firmly drawn under one of the biggest all-time FA Cup upsets, Town will be looking to bank all three points tomorrow – just as they did when the teams met in the corresponding fixture at Portman Road back in October and it resulted in an entertaining 4-2 home win, Chaplin opening the scoring with one of the goals of the season.
He shook off his marker in a well-rehearsed routine to sweep the ball into the net from a corner rolled into his path by Leif Davis and Preston boss Ryan Lowe was particularly frustrated as he explained to the media afterwards that it was a move he had warned his players about beforehand.
Chaplin added: "Yes, a set-piece goal. We like it when the set-piece goals come off after we’ve worked on them a lot in training and that was a good example.
"To be honest it doesn’t happen all the time, so to see that one flying in was a great feeling.
"It was the perfect way we had practiced it. That was a good day at Portman Road but it will be a completely different test at their place tomorrow. Going to Deepdale, it is going to be a really tough game.
"They started the season really, really well and, probably similar to us, they exceeded expectations. It has been tough for them in terms of keeping it up but they’ve been a great Championship club for a number of years – there’s no secret about that.
"I don’t know how many consecutive seasons they’ve been in the league but they are a really solid Championship outfit. They have really good, dangerous players and a lot of solid Championship experience as well.
"They are a physical team and it is going to be a tough test. They are aggressive in the way that they press and things like that. I am expecting a really tough game.”