Town defender Jacob Greaves says the Blues are going to have to be ‘switched on at all times’ as they prepare to host Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League this weekend.
Ange Postecoglou’s side visit Portman Road on Saturday off the back of successive league victories having previously lost eight of their last 10 matches which has seen them plummet nearer the relegation zone than the division's top four.
Spurs have had their share of injury issues, particularly in defence with Micky van de Ven, Christian Romero, Radu Dragusin, Richarlison and Dominic Solanke all set to miss out against the Blues.
But despite a depleted Tottenham squad, Greaves is under no illusion about the size of the task if Town are to return to winning ways this weekend.
"We’ve done our work on them throughout the week,” he said. "You look at them in the table and think they’re a team that’s down there but they’ve obviously had their injury struggles this season which has been unfortunate for them.
"A lot of teams go through that but theirs has been a bit catastrophic. They’ve got a lot of players back, they’re missing the two centre-halves but apart from that I think they’ve got a clean bill of health.
"The threats that they’ve got on the top line – [Heung-min] Son, [Dejan] Kulusevski, [Mathys] Tel, [James] Maddison are all unbelievable threats on their day.
"We know we need to be switched on because at any moment they can do something out of the ordinary and they could score and we’d be losing. We know that we’ve got to be switched on at all times.
"Towards the end of the season every game is going to be massive no matter who we’re playing. We might win this week and we might get beat the next week, but we know we’ve got to try and keep picking up points.
"Sometimes you never know when that win is going to come – I was injured for the Spurs away game when we got our first win and no-one expected us to go there and win so sometimes it can come at unexpected times.
"Now we’ve tested ourselves against all the teams, we feel like we can beat anyone when we’re on our day. It’s tough because a lot of the teams are really good at this level, especially the top teams, but when we’re on it we know we’ve got a really good structure and a really good stadium to play in.”
While calling for another strong Portman Road atmosphere, Greaves acknowledged it is up to the players to provide the energy on the pitch to get the crowd going as well as the other way round.
The former Hull City defender said: "We need to give them something to cheer about. It’s important for us to show them the right stuff on the pitch so they can get behind us – winning the first tackle, header or whatever it may be.
"Try and dictate the play a little bit and not let them control the game, that will be important for us to feed that onto the stadium and then we’ll definitely feel it a lot more by how we’re playing. They’ve been excellent this season and long may it continue.”
Kieran McKenna’s system has appeared fluid over the last few months with the Blues regularly switching between a back three and a back four.
Greaves says the approach for each game is dependent on a number of factors, most notably assessing the opposition, and says adopting the right tactic is something the players have enjoyed.
"It’s about looking at the way the opposition sets up and the way the gaffer wants to nullify their threats,” he said.
"Sometimes at home we could be a back four and a bit more aggressive, but sometimes away from home it suits us a little bit more dropping into that five and being more defensively solid across the backline.
"It just depends on what the gaffer wants, we can still be aggressive with the right-winger that drops into right-back in terms of him being aggressive and getting up the pitch and everyone shuffling across.
"It’s different and it’s been nice to learn in this environment with the different tactics the gaffer wants, I feel like we’ve all taken it on board really well.”
Town are currently two points from safety and will be looking to complete a league double over Spurs just as they did in their previous Premier League campaign having beaten the Lilywhites in north London in November.
That 2-1 victory marked the Blues’ first league win of the season and while Greaves missed the clash with a hamstring injury, he was delighted with the manner of performance from his teammates.
He said: "It was incredible and that’s what we needed, especially to go away to Spurs who were flying at the time. To win there was a real statement that we could play, compete and win games against anybody.
"It gave us a massive boost for the rest of the season. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to play there being injured because it’s an unbelievable stadium.
"Every game eggs you on no matter if I did play against them or not. It would be lovely to get a result against Spurs, we’ve obviously beaten them and them not getting a point against us this year.
"Hopefully that can be the case but we know it’s going to be a tough test because they’ve got players that are unbelievable on their day. Hopefully we can be good on our day and keep them quiet.”
Reflecting on life in the Premier League so far, Greaves said: "It’s been a good test. I’ve really enjoyed playing in the biggest league in the world testing myself week in, week out. I’ve really enjoyed the challenge.
"Being on Match of the Day is the only real difference. It’s just the difference in level, you can get punished at any opportunity and the quality is crazy good. You’ve got to be on your game at all times.”
Asked if he was missing his hometown of Hull, the 24-year-old added: "A little bit. I’ve not really had much time to go back home and see my family but they’ve come up quite a bit as well which has been nice. I think everyone sometimes misses home but that’s a part of the job and you’ve got to get on with it.”