Town captain Sam Morsy says the path to becoming a sustainable Premier League club is not always smooth sailing as the Blues head towards relegation to the Championship.
Anything but a victory against Newcastle United at St James’ Park and West Ham United losing to Brighton and Hove Albion on Saturday will confirm Town’s place in the second tier again next season alongside Leicester City and Southampton, whose fates have already been sealed.
This season will mark the second consecutive campaign in which the three newly promoted sides have all been immediately relegated, the first time that has happened since the Premier League’s inception in 1992.
Much has been spoken about the gap between the two divisions growing larger with the financial disparity at the centre of conversation, and the challenge of surviving in the top flight appears to be becoming more difficult each year.
Despite the general belief that the gulf is growing every season, Morsy was keen to emphasise that stepping up to a higher division is meant to be demanding and that numerous sides have shown in the past that the gap can be bridged.
"Of course it’s difficult but I remember speaking to one of my friends yesterday saying the last time he played Newcastle they were in the Championship,” he said.
"Newcastle have been in the Championship and got promoted, Forest have done the same, it wasn’t so long ago Villa done the same, it wasn’t so long ago Bournemouth done the same, Fulham were yo-yoing for a number of years.
"Of course it’s meant to be difficult but it’s not impossible. Teams will stay up, whether it’s next year or the year after, teams will come up and stay up. It’s meant to be difficult, that’s the challenge.
"It’s not meant to be easy, you’re not meant to get promoted and finish mid-table and go ‘actually this is easier than I thought it would be’, it doesn’t work like that. For us and our club, everyone is on their different journeys. Southampton and Leicester are on different journeys to us.
"For us, it’s about expanding, getting better, strengthening the squad in every window, international scouting, all of these things are part of the process of growing so you can reach the goal which is to be a sustainable Premier League club but to get there there’s going to be many ups and downs.”
It is clear that the last few months have been challenging for the Blues, who have won just one league match in 2025 and only four all season with the home form being a particular problem.
However, Morsy says there is still the motivation to succeed in the final five matches of the campaign even if the season is set to end in disappointment.
He said: "It’s always challenging because you always have high expectations of yourself and the team, when you fall below that it can become challenging.
"At the same time, it’s good to always keep the perspective of there’s still games to play, try and compete and try and do as best as you can.
"t’s one game at a time. To be a professional footballer you’re very lucky never mind to be playing at the top level so there’s always that gratitude.
"We know our fans are going to come in numbers, we know we’re going to have friends watching, family watching and people that have supported us along all of our journeys, so there’s massive motivation to still win a game and still compete.
"In the last few weeks we’ve done that and we’ve had good performances, the Arsenal game was obviously difficult for a number of reasons. The motivation is just to win a game of football when you strip it back, it’s why you play football in the first place is to compete and to win.”
While admitting that the time to reflect on the season will not come until the final ball has been kicked, Morsy says a lot can be learned from the experience of playing in the Premier League both on and off the field.
"It’s always good to reflect and see where you’re at, but certainly during the season it’s just about trying to improve and seeing what you need to do,” he said. "At the same time, not going into a deep dive of analysing and focusing on the negatives. It’s about the quick turnaround in games, working hard and trying to win the next game.
"These moments can make you a lot stronger and make you better, it just depends on how you perceive them and it can go either way. I’ve been around long enough to see how success and failure affects different players and personalities.
"When you have a season like this it can go one way or the other, I’ll make sure that I go in the right way just to further improve and get better at my craft. You can easily go the other way and make excuses or be delusional and it’s not the way to be.
"It’s been a great experience and it’s one personally in the group we can improve and be better from. Hopefully within a season or a few seasons, players will be saying that because of these moments they grew so much and it’s elevated them.”
Town have 21 points to their name this season but have dropped a further 27 from winning positions, the most of any team in the Premier League.
Morsy believes that statistic can portray a mixture of positives and negatives.
"It’s probably a lot of things,” he considered. "Sometimes it’s going to be the level, sometimes it’s going to be people making mistakes, sometimes concentration.
"The Leicester one we probably should have had a penalty then Kalvin [Phillips] gets sent off so you’re going to have all sorts of scenarios.
"At the same time, that stat can be misleading. If you go to Man City in the second game of the season and go 1-0 up, is it three points dropped? I don’t know.
"But of course, it’s something which we’ll own and it’s something which shows where we’ve been this season – close but not close enough.”
As one of a number of Blues players in their first ever season at the level, Morsy says overall journey in the Premier League has been one of pride.
The 33-year-old said: "First and foremost, it’s a dream come true to play in the Premier League. It’s been a tough season in terms of results but I think you can see how we’ve done – we've been competitive in a number of games so it’s been really pleasing. For myself, to be able to compete at this level and keep improving with good players and trying to compete.
"You have to [enjoy it], you’d be ungrateful not to enjoy it off the back of one promotion never mind back-to-back promotions. You have to look at it, you have to enjoy it and you have to take the challenges on and no doubt it’s a huge challenge this weekend.
"It’s been a great journey. We’ve competed a lot, we’ve had good days and we’ve had learning days. In particular, the away days we’ve really taken it to teams, tried our best, competed and went toe-to-toe so it’s a really big effort.
"The whole group has stuck together along the journey, that’s been the most pleasing thing for me is that we’ve stuck together and we’ve done our best. Sometimes doing your best is not good enough, but that’s something I’m proud of the group staying together.”
Jack Clarke recently said that one of the biggest surprises he has experienced of playing in the Premier League was the size of Manchester City striker Erling Haaland.
Morsy, though, knew exactly what to expect when the Norwegian lined up in the tunnel at the Etihad Stadium alongside him back in August.
"I knew how big he was,” he joked. "I wasn’t expecting to see Aguero’s height when I saw Haaland.”
Morsy added: "Some things with officials but I probably can’t say, that’s a conversation for another day. We’ve prepared and we knew it was going to be a tough season but I think we prepared quite well for the expectation of quality.”