Town head to Peterborough on Saturday with defender Cameron Burgess clearly relishing the prospect as he announced: “Bring it on!”

It’s the start of a huge week for the Blues as they continue their automatic promotion challenge at Barnsley on Tuesday night and then take on mid-table Exeter at Portman Road on Saturday week, before completing the campaign eight days later at Fleetwood.

Asked about the trip to London Road, Burgess said: “Bring it on. It’s obviously a big game and we enjoy the big ones. I hope it’s exciting for our fans and hopefully we will get the result we want, the one we have been working hard to get, and come back with the three points.

“We all know we’ve got a job to do and we’re a humble group of players and staff. We’re very grounded because we know we’ve not achieved anything yet and we’ll just take one game at a time until they’re all finished, which will be time to reflect, celebrate or whatever. We just try to control what we can control and continue to take steps forward.”

Posh striker Jonson Clarke-Harris is the leading League One marksman with 25 goals, three more than Town’s top scorer, Conor Chaplin, and Burgess knows all about him after playing against him a number of times in his career.

The defender said: “He’s having a good season and seems to have had good seasons at this level for just about as long as I can remember. He’s a big threat but not their only one.

“They’ve got a lot of forward players who are capable of causing problems for us, so we must go into the game as well prepared as we can, which is what we do ahead of every fixture. It’s a big challenge for us.

“With Clarke-Harris, his goal record speaks for itself. Give him chances and, more often than not, he’ll take them. He’s a typical goalscorer, not unlike some others in this league, but he has done it consistently over a number of years and that’s what probably sets him apart from the rest.

“When you play against him it’s about limiting the number of chances he gets, which also means being alert to the players around him, those who feed him the ball and get the assists. It requires of us a complete performance to cut out that threat and to prevent them from scoring.”

Burgess was asked, based on the team’s recent 15-game unbeaten league run that has seen them score 38 times, concede only five goals and keep 11 clean sheets, if he and his colleagues felt they were invincible.

“No, we would never do that,” he replied firmly. “Anyone thinking they are invincible would be very short-sighted in my opinion. We train hard — always have, always will — and we put a lot of work into our preparation for every game we play.

“It keeps us grounded and it’s the constant message around the club. There wouldn’t be anything humble about claiming we were invincible and it’s just not our style. I don’t think we can get ahead of ourselves and say that sort of stuff. We’ve improved a lot as a team and we want to keep getting better. You can never be fully satisfied on that front.

“As players, I think we’re all where we intended to be, challenging for a big prize with Ipswich. We’re here for a reason, to try to achieve promotion to the Championship, and although we have put ourselves in a strong position, it’s important we realise that we’ve done nothing yet.

“It’s always about the next game and controlling what you can control. Then hopefully, everything else looks after itself.”

Burgess switched his attention to the Town supporters, who have backed their team to the hilt this season, adding: “It’s amazing how the fans keep outdoing themselves from one game to the next.

“They will be out in force again at Peterborough — it will be the second biggest away following we’ll have had this season — and I’ve said before that it’s almost like playing at home for us.

“It’s special for us and it shows the size of this club — and, hopefully, where we’re going. The fans’ backing definitely helps the lads and it’s great to see and experience.”

Town had gone eight games without conceding, Cheltenham’s Alfie May netting near the end of the recent 1-1 draw between the sides to end the sequence and prevent them equalling a Football League record, and Burgess admitted: “In-house, we tried not to give the record too much thought and just concentrate on the game in front of us.

“There’s nothing we are doing defensively now that we were not doing earlier in the season. Some things happen in games that you can’t control, like giving the opposition no shots at goal and then suddenly one flies in with a deflection or something like that. That’s the way football works and it has always been like that.

“We go out for every game trying not to concede goals and keep a clean sheet, but it’s not always possible. However, when you do get a few on the bounce, it takes a bit of the pressure off the boys up the other end because they only need to score one.

“Having said that, they scored a pile of goals in the weeks we weren’t conceding any, so credit to them.

“You get all sorts of different games in a long season, different teams doing different things, and it’s up to us to go out and show we can cope with anything that is thrown at us.

“That’s what gets you success at the end of the season, so we have to make sure we are prepared for every game, irrespective of who it is against. Also, if things change during games, which can happen a lot, we have to deal with it and adapt accordingly.”

Town’s problem in the past was a difficulty to beat their promotion rivals, but having already won at Bolton and Derby in recent weeks, they have no fear of facing a fifth-placed Posh outfit also keen to bank three points and reinforce their position as play-off contenders.

Burgess continued: “We can’t expect to be successful at the top end of the league if we can’t beat our rivals. We have to make our mark in those type of games, so we’ll be looking to take the game to Peterborough, as we did at both Bolton and Derby.

“It’s important to remember that we get three points for every game we win — there are no extra points for beating the teams around us at the top — so we’ll go there and play our game the way we do best.

“Also, none of us are looking at how many points might be needed to go up. I think it could be a bit dangerous to say we need a specific number of points, so we don’t let that happen. The key to success is to keep winning and if we can do that it will be okay.”

Photo: Matchday Images

Bluesky added 09:59 - Apr 21 Easy to forget the horrific injury Burgess sustained at the start of the season. The courage of this man is exemplary, quite apart from his obvious footballling skills.
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BobbyBell added 10:24 - Apr 21 Peterborough are a good attacking side but that will suit us better than a team parking the bus. An open end to end game with hopefully Ipswich attacking most of the time. This could be a 2-3 or 2-4.
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