Town boss Kieran McKenna has been reflecting on the winter lull in the Blues’ form which was a feature of the two promotion seasons before a remarkable resurgence at around this point, with history perhaps repeating itself again this season.

In the 2022/23 League One promotion year, Town won only one in eight between the end of December and Valentine’s Day before going on an astonishing streak in which they won 13 out of the next 14, drawing the other, to secure a place in the Championship.

Back in the second tier last season, the Blues had a similar spell of one win in nine from mid-December until a 4-0 win at Millwall on Valentine’s Day heralded a run of nine wins in 10.

This season, Town have lost their last four in the Premier League and are without a win in five since beating Chelsea 2-0 at Portman Road on December 29th.

“It’s something that we’re aware of, something that we spoke to the group about a little bit as well,” McKenna said when the winter record was put to him.

“It’s something that we’re going to try and show as we go out of the winter and into the spring.

“I know the context of it and I think it’s not a coincidence how similar the last two seasons were to each other when you climb quickly, and we climbed quickly from a team that were in the middle of League One to the top of League One pretty quickly and then we climbed from being a team at the top of League One to competing at the top end of the Championship really, really quickly.

“You can draw some similarities in terms of strong first halves of the seasons where we were ringing a lot out of the group and then also you can get to a period where the group probably needs a boost and probably needs to go again, and we did that over the last couple of seasons and we were able to come through January periods where we had injuries, we had unavailability and we had players come in.

“I often feel that when you have players come in in January, which sometimes is a necessity when you’ve climbed really, really quickly, if you’re at the same place as you were two years ago, you probably don’t need to improve quite so much in January, but when you do have January additions, it can be tricky as well, and it doesn’t always accelerate you straight away.

“Sometimes, actually, in the last couple of seasons, we probably took a step back when we made some additions as there’s a period where new players are settling into the team and it’s about working through that and being consistent with your work and keeping belief.

“And I think what we have shown is that by working in a consistent manner, sticking to your process, adapting where you need to adapt and improve, integrating new players in the right way, that if you do that, then margins can change pretty quickly.

“We went from runs where the margins were consistently going against us to, in League One, an EFL record-breaking run and last season I think we won nine out of 10 games in the Championship, which is an incredible feat.

“I don’t think we’re going to win nine out of 10 games in the Premier League this year, but I think in the last couple of years we’ve shown that working in a consistent manner, sticking together, fighting to improve little details that can turn the margins your way.

“Integrating new players in January and sticking with that process even though it can be tough and it doesn’t always reap rewards straight away, if you work in a consistent manner, then things can change and you can turn margins in your favour.

“That’s what we’re going to try and do over the next couple of months and that’s the challenge ahead of us.”

TWTD

flykickingbybgunn added 17:44 - Feb 13 Bring on the Villa !
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muccletonjoe added 17:50 - Feb 13 In the two previous seasons we have stuck to our guns and added players to make us better , which has worked quite well. This season I think it is more a case of certain players finding their form. If that happens , our league position could improve enough to keep us up, but it will take a mammoth effort
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IpswichT62OldBoy added 18:01 - Feb 13 We still have to play a lot of sides who are around us. I believe we will stay up for the reasons K McK laid out.
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Marinersnose added 20:01 - Feb 13 This town side still hasn’t recovered from the poor home display against Brighton and imo our performances have been well below the required standard since albeit we have played some top teams. Even at Coventry when several players were rested we started the second half so poorly and against a PL team we would’ve been blown away. We rode our luck but it’s still a good victory. I’m not sure McKenna knows his best 11 .

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