Berra Out for Repeat Performance
Friday, 20th Feb 2015 06:00

Christophe Berra has been there and done it as far as winning promotion from the Championship is concerned, an experience few of his Town colleagues can match.

Berra was thrown straight into a promotion battle when he joined previous club Wolves in a £2.5 million move from Hearts just over six years ago. He succeeded then and is desperate to make it a double with Ipswich.

The Scot said: “I joined Wolves with 15 games to go and we’ve got the same number to play this season. We didn’t win any of my first four but then we finished really strongly and only lost one of our last 11.

“Sometimes you have the momentum and even if you’re not playing particularly well you have a player — Johnny on the spot — who can put the ball in the back of the net.

“We’ve got the top scorer in this league in Daryl Murphy. He’s had a fabulous season and it seems everything he touches pays off.

“All credit to him and TC for all the work he does with him and the other strikers. Everyone’s chipping in and if you’re a team with ambitions of being promoted you need somebody to score that amount of goals and for things to go in your favour.

“There’s nothing worse than a team struggling to score goals, which means you’ve got to rely on keeping a clean sheet or getting an odd goal.

"“When you’ve got someone with Daryl’s ratio of goals per game it gives you confidence and you can be sure other team’s defenders aren’t looking forward to coming up against him in the form he’s in.”

But while Murphy’s 21-goal haul from the 29 games in which he has played is a terrific achievement, Berra admits Town could also do with Lady Luck putting in an appearance during the 10 weeks of the season that remain.

He added: “We’re going to need a bit of luck here and there. Every team will be the same, hoping decisions go for them rather than against them in certain games and certain scenarios.

“Let’s hope the gods are looking down on us and we get a few breaks along the way.

“There is a certain amount of pressure but there is probably more on the guys at the top with teams chasing them.

“The good thing is that we’ve still got to play everyone in the top eight, apart from Derby, and they have all got to play each other as well.

“There are going to be points dropped all over the place and hopefully we can pick up more than we drop.

“I’m happy with where we are in the league but I’d also love to be 10 points clear at the top.

“However, if you had sat here at the start of the season and said we’d be fourth, just three points off the top, at this stage we’d have taken it any day of the week.

“We don’t have the biggest squad or the biggest budget but one thing’s for sure — we have a good management staff and we have good characters, and players, in the changing room.

“We’re doing well as a team but speak to me with three or four games to go and hopefully I’ll still be saying all the same things and we’ll still be in the mix or even better.”

Photo: Action Images

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RichOBlue added 07:49 - Feb 20 The headline worried me at first!!!!
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PhilTWTD added 08:53 - Feb 20 Hadn't occurred to me that it could be read that way. Apologies for the shock! Have amended to avoid causing more undue worry.
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Fixed_It added 09:03 - Feb 20 Thanks, Phil. It came up on my Facebook feed as 'Berra Out For Promotion Double' and I nearly had a heart attack thinking he wasn't playing for the next two games!
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