O'Shea: There's Confidence in the Group Tuesday, 26th Aug 2025 14:28 by Kallum Brisset Town captain Dara O’Shea insists the Blues are not lacking in confidence despite failing to win any of their opening three Championship matches of the season. Saturday’s 1-0 loss at Preston North End marked Town’s first league defeat of the campaign, having drawn both of their previous games with Birmingham City and Southampton 1-1. The Blues have won just one league match this calendar year and have the opportunity to register their first three points when Derby County visit Portman Road this weekend in the final clash before the international break. O’Shea accepted that winning matches are vital for belief within the squad, but trusts that the hard work on the training pitch will bring positive results in time. “It’s always one of them that you need to win games to have that confidence and momentum,” he said. “The confidence is definitely there in the group, you can see what we’re doing at times and we’re really causing teams problems. “It’s tough when you come to places like this [Preston] and they sit in a back five. That early goal is something they want and they can hang onto something and don’t really have to come out. “For us, it’s trying to get confident in those situations. Maybe we’re not confident enough to go and push, maybe we need that hunger a bit more. “That will come, I keep saying everything will come. It’s really early doors in the season and it’s not a crisis point where we’re worrying about things, we really believe in what we’re doing. “Once the window closes and we have a group of players, we can really kick on and hopefully push ourselves right back up the table, stay there and be there come the end of the season. “There’s lots of new partnerships everywhere in the whole group, everyone’s getting to understand each other. “The cohesion is massive for us and the way we want to play, we’re not a team that just lumps it and plays off. We’re big on our patterns, how we can link and get together and get up the pitch. “For the way we want to play, that cohesion is important, so the more time we have together and the more hard work we put on the training pitch, I really do believe things are going to come good for us.” Town have had more squad turnover than hoped this summer and have needed to recruit new faces as a result, many of whom are still working their way into the group. Chuba Akpom and Kasey McAteer were the latest to make their Blues debuts against the Lilywhites, both featuring as second-half substitutes alongside the returning Jens Cajuste and Ashley Young. McAteer, who becomes the latest Republic of Ireland international at Portman Road, had only arrived the previous day from Championship rivals Leicester City. “That’s five Irish lads here now,” O’Shea said. “It’s great, I know Kasey quite well from playing with him in the international set-up. I know what he can do and I know how effective he can be. “He’s only had one session with us so it was never going to be easy for him to come into a new group. We’re trying to integrate him, get the relationships and cohesion again. Everything is timing for us right now. “We’ve spoken in the group. We know what we need as a group of players, especially the lads who have been here. We’re very lucky, we’ve got a great group of lads who are really good, and anybody who comes into the group feels really warm and settled straight away because I definitely did when I stepped in. “It’s about doing that on the training pitch, setting the standards for the new lads so they see when they come in that this is a proper working environment where we push each other. “We do that day in, day out. Once they get on board with that, which I’m sure they will, we’ll have no problem with that.” Asked whether the transfer window can be unsettling at this time of year, O’Shea added: “It’s never easy when the window is open for whatever reasons. It’s nice to have players come in and new faces, it really does bring a boost to the squad. “But there’s also that lingering noise of players leaving and that kind of is unsettling at times. But this is all about football, everyone’s got these problems to deal with, it’s not just ourselves. “We’ve got to trust the board and the club to do the right things and we’ve just got to crack on on the pitch, we can’t think too much into that as a group. Day in, day out with the manager, believing what we’re doing, and we are, we just need to keep being repetitive with that and really trust ourselves.”
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