Town boss Kieran McKenna believes the biggest challenge he and his team face between now and the end of the season is their busy schedule.

Starting with Easter Monday’s 2-1 home victory over Birmingham City, the Blues end their season with eight games in 27 days with the additions of the twice-postponed match at Portsmouth and the visit to Southampton, which switched to the campaign’s final week due to the Saints’ progress in the FA Cup.

Town sit second in the table, level on points with Middlesbrough and Millwall in third and fourth but with a better goal difference and two games in hand.

Five wins from their remaining seven matches would be enough to secure a second promotion to the Premier League in three season and McKenna was asked what it will take to secure those victories.

“I think it would be a lot more of the same,” he said. “There is not one recipe that says, ’we will do this on Monday and we will do this on Tuesday and Wednesday and we will get promoted’. It’s not like that.

“It’s about the whole season and certain principles that you stick to and you hope they carry you through until the end of the season.

“When you talk about run-ins and end of the season, we are very much a team that focuses on ourselves and don’t get worried too much about league tables or other teams or speaking about their points or fixtures.

“We just focus on the next game, we work really hard at the training ground to prepare and have a lot of humility for each opponent. And then we go and try and deliver a performance. Whether we win or lose, we take it on the chin, learn from it and go onto the next.

“That’s how we have carried ourselves right the way through and over the last four or five years. For me, it is how you want to carry yourself when you get to a spell like this. It’s not about doing anything different, it’s about sticking to the principles you believe in.

“Of course, it’s almost a completely different group now to what we had then. It is a different context, a different league, a really challenging fixture list, so you are dealing with that in an unique basis. But we stick to what we believe in and that’s been consistent during all my time here.”

Most of Town’s remaining opponents currently have something left to play for in their seasons, whether that’s outside hopes of the play-offs, avoiding relegation or automatic promotion. McKenna was asked whether he felt that was a positive or a negative.

“It can work both ways,” the Northern Irishman reflected. “We know that’s the case [with remaining fixtures], but I think the biggest challenge for us is the scheduling, it’s not whether you are playing a team at the top or the bottom or the middle.

“It’s always a challenge at this stage of the season as there is huge motivation at the top end and huge motivation at the bottom end, and sometimes the teams that don’t have any fear or anything to go for can sometimes just throw the kitchen sink at it and that can make them really dangerous.

“I said that after the second half at Birmingham, it was always going to be difficult when we didn’t go and open up a two-goal margin. They have got top players coming off the bench and absolutely nothing to lose, so they’re throwing loads of bodies forward with good quality and unless you go and get the extra goal to kill them off, it’s always going to go to the wire.

“The games are all difficult and we are going to face every type in the next seven. As I said, the biggest challenge is the speed in which they come round but we are ready for that as much as we can be.”

In years past when clubs have had similar fixture congestion issues, games have been played beyond the end of the season. For example, in 1977/78, the Blues completed their First Division season with a home match against Wolves on the Tuesday following the FA Cup final.

Would McKenna advocate the same happening now when clubs are presented with run-ins such as Town’s?

“I think that would be difficult in terms of the integrity,” he said. “Knowing if you got to that and both teams needed a draw, we’d all agree that us and Southampton could pass the ball around for 90 minutes and it wouldn’t be too fair.

“I think there are definitely things to look at. I’ve spoken enough about it and the postponements we have had this year and the pitches, and the FA Cup, that’s the same for Southampton.

“Two years ago when we got promoted, Coventry got to the semi-finals and were in the run-in for the play-offs and it was almost impossible for them. I think there are things that can be looked at in that situation as it is unfair on the Championship team and any team that has to play against them to not have that midweek ahead of the last game of the season.

“The international breaks have been changed and I think that’s good. For the Championship, it’s not like many clubs have 16 or 17 players away but you end up with long periods with no games and then periods with an incredible number of games.

“I am sure there are people higher up than me looking at this. In my two seasons in the Championship, there have been a couple of teams who have had really crazy runs of games and probably something should be done about it.”

Given the frequency of matches between now and May 2nd, when QPR visit Portman Road, McKenna says there will always be an element of forward planning when it comes to selecting his team.

“There is in this block,” he said. “We came into it knowing that the team that we picked against Birmingham, I’m pretty sure isn’t going to be the team which plays against QPR, probably isn’t going to be the team which plays Middlesbrough at the halfway point.

“We’re going to have to make decisions as we go along, knowing that very few players are going to play those eight games in that space of time with the mental and physical load on those games.

“We’ll try and plan accordingly, give ourselves the best chance to win the next game, but knowing that we’ll have to utilise the strength of the group to be successful in this period.”

He admits he’d rather have the points on the board rather than the two games in hand: “I think that’s always the case. We’d rather be where Coventry are but we are where we are.

“We don’t focus on anyone else, what points other teams have got, who is playing who, we just know we have seven games now, it was eight before Monday, seven games, there are lots of reasons why they’re all going to be tough games, but we believe in ourselves and believe that we can pick up positive results, and that’s what we’re focusing in on doing.”

Quizzed on how he feels going into the run-in, whether his overriding feeling is nerves or excitement, McKenna said: “There is always a little bit in between, but you have to remind yourself that it’s a lot better than the other scenario.

“You get to the run-in and you are there or thereabouts with the opportunity to achieve your goals, it’s what you have been working on all season.

“So at that point, I will remind the players of that. It’s the last time to get tense or to change things or let anything negative creep into your psyche.

“It’s the moment to be grateful for being in that position and then to go for it. It’s time to empty the tank, whether it is staff members and what we put into the preparation or players and what they put into the game.

“And then you just enjoy the rhythm. I might have a little moan about the schedule, but at the end of the day it’s massive games of football every couple of days and a privilege to be involved in. We remind ourselves of that constantly and we are really looking forward to what we have coming up and what we are involved in.”

Photo: TWTD