Town defender Jacob Greaves believes the Portman Road crowd can make the difference as the Blues host Southampton in their first home match of the season on Sunday.
Kieran McKenna’s side return to Suffolk soil for the first time since the end of last season having not played a pre-season match at their iconic home and after being on the road for the opening league and cup matches of the campaign.
Fresh from relegation from the Premier League last season, the Blues take on another of the relegated sides in the Saints, who were the only club to finish below Town in the top flight last term.
Greaves admitted his own experience with Town means he has some sympathy for the south coast club in what was a challenging season in which they claimed just two wins and 12 points.
"It was obviously a tough year in the Premier League last season so I can understand the struggles with what we went through,” he said.
"This time around, they’re a little bit of a different opposition. We’ve done a little bit of work on them over the last two days and they seem to be a little bit more direct than when they had Russell Martin and connected through the pitch everywhere.
"They’ve gone to a back three as well which will be different. It’s going to be a tough game, we know that. Obviously they’re probably going to be up there, hopefully with us towards the end of the season.
"We’ve got it at Portman Road this time around so that will be nice and hopefully we can use the fans in our favour.”
Town will aim to earn their first home league point of the calendar year and end a club-record run of nine consecutive defeats on home soil, but the Blues’ recent home record is not something that has been a topic of conversation in the dressing room.
"Not really, to be honest,” Greaves said. "It’s just one of them where there’s really no excuses for it. We had a tough run, they say you earn your own luck but we had a tough gig at home last season in the Prem.
"But we had a couple of really good nights there as well so you can’t forget about them. We’ve got to use those ones where we’ve caused really good Premier League teams tough nights there.
"We know that this time around in the Championship it’s going to be hopefully a little bit better and we can use this to our advantage. It’s so important to get a good home record, hopefully the fans can help us with that and stick with us and keep supporting.”
Southampton are arguably the most difficult opposition for the Blues to start their Portman Road campaign against, with the Saints and Town currently the two favourites for automatic promotion back to the Premier League.
Will Still has newly been appointed as the visitors’ new manager, a coach well-known to Blues midfield duo Jens Cajuste and Azor Matusiwa from their time together at French club Reims.
Despite their connection, Greaves says the pair have not been discussing the best ways to exploit Still’s tactics ahead of his first away league game in charge of the club.
He said: "Not yet, but I know the gaffer loves one of them where he tries to find out as much information as he can from people that have played under the manager.
"I’m sure he’ll be asking them, but the gaffer does that much research, he’ll know everything off by heart. He’s probably watched their games numerous times from when they were in France together.
"I’m not sure if their style of play is the same, I’ve not watched many games of him in France because I don’t know if they’re on TV, I’ve never really looked into the French league.
"We’ll do our research, it looks like it’s a little bit direct so we’ll have to be ready for that and maybe use that to our advantage as well.”
The Blues got off the mark for the season with a 1-1 draw with upwardly-mobile Birmingham City last Friday thanks to George Hirst’s penalty in the fifth minute of stoppage time, a game that reminded Greaves of a clash against the Blues while he was at Hull City.
"It was a really tough game, in fairness,” he reflected. "Everything was built up for them. The stadium, I’ve played there before and it’s never had that atmosphere. Fair play to the owners that have come in and got that feel-good factor around the club.
"It kind of felt like the game I had against Ipswich when they went up from the Championship. Obviously we had a better result, we got beat 3-0 when I was at Hull.
"In the end, you probably look back at that at the end of the season and think it’s a relatively good point, a last-minute equaliser. On the balance of play, it was quite an even game so I thought a point was fair but obviously disappointed to concede. I really enjoyed the game, overall it’s a good point.”
Greaves is all too aware that the pressure is on Town to deliver this season with the external expectation being the Blues will compete and challenge for the title.
The defender reiterated that the Championship is a notoriously difficult division, but one where he has the confidence that Town have the experience to achieve their ultimate goal.
He said: "I think it’s going to be really tough. You look at the teams and results from the weekend, anyone can beat anyone.
"We know that we’ve maybe got a little bit of a target on our back coming down from the Premier League in terms of teams wanting to turn up and beat us, but we’ve got to relish that.
"We’ve got a very humble dressing room that have come all through the leagues. We’ve all played a lot of the leagues, it was only last season where we had our first season in the Premier League.
"We know what it takes to do well in the Championship and I know I’ve had plenty of tough games in the Championship. We know what it’s going to take, we’ve got an unbelievable set of players in there that are all relishing the opportunity.
"We know we’re going to have highs and lows this season, it’s about how we manage them. Hopefully we can stay in and around it, push on and try and get that target of going back up.”
During his last campaign at Championship level two years ago, Greaves was named in the Team of the Season for his performances for Hull, displays which led to the Blues signing him last summer.
"There are a lot of good defenders in the league again this year, as there were when I was in the Team of the Year,” the 24-year-old said. "That’s obviously the goal to try and get back in there or get back in and around that.
"But if there’s five of the lads in here and I’m not, I’ll still take that as long as we’ve had a good season and managed to reach our target.”