Ipswich Town: Sam Morsy on chase for Championship top two

With 13 games left in the season, Town are third in the Championship, level on points with second-placed Leeds United and two clear of Southampton in fourth.

With Leicester City topping the table, Town are competing step-for-step with the three recently-relegated Premier League clubs for automatic promotion, a remarkable achievement given the respective wage bills and squads.

But inspirational skipper Morsy, who set up Wes Burns' first goal in the wild 4-3 win over Rotherham on Tuesday night, says the Blues will not back down.

Sam Morsy in the thick of the action against Rotherham (Image: PA Images)
"We just control what we can control," he explained. "We’re on more than two points per game, which is obviously really positive.

“But we just take it one game at a time. I still feel that we can get better.

“If this was our maximum and the season was to finish now we’d probably be disappointed, so the goal is just to keep getting better, keep improving and see if we can put a winning run together.”

Part of the reason for Morsy's belief is the arrival of four new players last month - strikers Kieffer Moore and Ali Al-Hamadi, plus winger Jeremy Sarmiento and midfielder Lewis Travis.

Ali Al-Hamadi has impressed so far (Image: Ross Halls)
"We can definitely get better, I don’t think this is our maximum," he insisted. "The new lads have come in and Kief’s hit the ground running, Ali’s hit the ground running, Jez has come in and done well, Trav’s shown what he can do.

“They’re all fantastic characters. Trav’s not played as much as the rest of the lads, but just being in the building and his personality has given the place a lift and he’s got a big part to play as well.

“So they’re all going to have a big part to play and it’s really exciting. The two strikers have done really well. Ali’s brought a different dimension, running the channels and getting at people.”

Kieffer Moore is one of four new signings whom Morsy says have 'hit the ground running' (Image: Pagepix Ltd)
As the captain, Morsy says it's his job to help integrate the new quartet into the group, a band of brothers in blue who have all bought into the culture of learning and improvement under boss Kieran McKenna.

He explained: "We try to make them feel as comfortable as possible because once you feel comfortable and accepted in your group that’s when you can thrive – and they’re all thriving to be honest, they’re all doing really well.

"If we’re going to do anything it’s a team effort – it’s about the team, not one individual.

“Everyone’s got an equal value at this club and the new guys have got to feel it as soon as they come in, they’ve got to buy into what we’re doing.

“That’s hard work, community and delivering on the pitch – and to be fair, the lads have done, they’ve all bought into it, they’re all working really hard.

“You look at someone like Jez (Sarmiento) who’s an attacking sort of flair player, but every time he comes in he’s diving in, he’s slide-tackling, he’s really getting into it, which is great because we need all the players doing that.”

Sam Morsy says everything is a team effort at Town (Image: Warren Page)
All of which brings us back to the promotion race and Town's 'team effort' against a trio of parachute-payment-packing, star-name-laden foes.

"Yeah, they’re tough teams," Morsy admitted. "It’s tough every season, there’s no doubt about it.

“They’re good teams, but so are we. Everybody has different qualities – people speak about Leeds having a  £70m frontline or Southampton’s got Premier League strikers and all that.

“But we know what we’ve got – we’ve got very good players, an excellent manager and a really good team spirit where we’ve been together for a few years and we’ve got experience of doing this last season in terms of sticking together and going on a really good run.

“So everyone’s got their own things which they’ll hang onto – but I like where we’re at, we’ve got a really good team spirit and we’re really strong.

“We know we’re going to have to dig in and do a lot of things right and excel – but that’s part of the journey and you’ve just got to enjoy the journey really because before you know it, the season’s done.

“You’ve got to enjoy it and enjoy each moment.”