Town winger Jack Clarke believes the Blues have made huge strides since the opening stages of the Championship season.

Having returned to the second tier following relegation from the Premier League last term, Town failed to win any of their first four league matches before the summer transfer window closed at the beginning of September.

Since then, the Blues have been on an upward trajectory and find themselves third in the table, two points behind second-placed Middlesbrough but while holding a game in hand.

Manager Kieran McKenna has regularly referenced the growth since the playing squad has become settled, and Clarke, who is now in his second season at the club, was in total agreement.

“In comparison to where we were at the start and where we are now, we’ve come on a lot,” he said. “Obviously we had a lot of players leave that had been quite impactful players over the course of the last few seasons.

“We implemented a lot of new players, like anything it takes time to get used to playing with them and let them adapt to everything that’s going on. Especially over the last five or six weeks, we’ve started showing a better version of ourselves.

“I’d like to still think there’s a lot of areas we can improve and still get better as a team, but that takes time and hopefully towards the back end of the season we’ll get there.”

Perhaps the most complete performance came in the Blues’ statement 2-0 victory at league leaders Coventry City at the end of last month, which marked the second time Frank Lampard’s side had been beaten by Town in little more than three weeks.

On the night, Clarke led from the front and had a hand in both goals, breaking the deadlock with less than 20 minutes remaining before spearheading the counter-attack that led to Wes Burns netting the second.

The 25-year-old felt a performance of that significance had been coming for a while, and that it only fuelled further belief that the Blues can achieve their ultimate goal of promotion this season.

He said: “Even in games before that, we felt like we’d been close and things were coming together in terms of performance and results matching.

“There’s obviously that element of comfort that we’ve all got with each other now in terms of whoever plays, we know what we’re getting out of certain players.

“The magnitude of that game going away to the league leaders and stamping a bit of authority down, the result matched that and we felt we had to give that performance. It might have sparked something, but internally we felt like that had been brewing for a while.

“We’ve not been flawless all season and we haven’t played brilliant in every single game. Sometimes we felt like we’ve played well and not come out on the better side of certain games and scenarios.

“Vice versa, we’ve probably not played very well and won games as well, so it’s just about finding that balance in between.

“Maybe from that night it sparked something, but we felt internally that it was there or thereabouts for a long time.”

Since then, Town have found momentum having recorded a fifth successive victory in all competitions in Tuesday’s comfortable 2-0 home win over play-off chasing Bristol City.

Clarke struck once in each half to take his own tally of goals to 10 for the season, moving level with fellow left winger Jaden Philogene.

“We’re all happy with it,” he said. “I think it just shows how far we’ve come as a team this season that we can play a good opposition like that, put in a good performance, not really look in trouble at any moment during the game and come out with three points. It’s a testament to where we are at the minute.

“I was probably happier with the second goal than the first one. The first is something I’ve been doing the majority of my life, to be honest, so it just feels more natural than the second.

“The second one came at an important point, it gave us that comfortability in the game and it was a nice finish so I was happy with it.”

Next up is a trip to Bramall Lane for the Blues’ first away match of 2026 against Sheffield United, who come into the contest off the back of three straight defeats.

Earlier in the season, the Blades were convincingly dispatched 5-0 at Portman Road but have since sacked Rubén Sellés and replaced him with the returning Chris Wilder.

Asked whether they have improved since the reverse fixture, Clarke said: “Yeah, I’d say so. Obviously it’s going to be a massively different game to the first time around.

“If you look at their squad on paper, it was very similar back then and everybody knows the qualities they’ve got. They’ve reverted back to a manager that they’re trusted in and I think they’re playing better football.”

Photo: TWTD