Ipswich Town winger Wes Burns on recent form, Millwall victory and praise for Kieffer Moore and Ali Al-Hamadi ahead of Swansea City trip

Ipswich Town winger Wes Burns stated that ‘everyone is fighting for each other’ within the squad as the Blues prepare to make the trip to Wales to face Swansea City tomorrow (3pm).

Kieran McKenna’s side travel to the 17th-placed Sky Bet Championship outfit off the back of a 4-0 victory away at Millwall on Wednesday night, which was their second win in their last 10 league games – a performance that Burns described as ‘a statement’.

While a lot has been made of Town’s recent run of results, the Blues, fourth in the table, sit just three points off the automatic-promotion places with a game in hand on current second-placed side Leeds United.

“There’s been a lot of outside noise about our dip in form,” said the 29-year-old Welsh international.

“I think our standards were set so high at the start of the season that when we did have a couple of back-to-back draws or a defeat, everyone would question whether we were going to be in it for the long haul.

“We had a reset meeting after the window closed and the message was the same. We didn’t talk about anything of play-offs or promotion, it was just the same messages of trying to improve every day and trying to improve on every performance.

“We’ve got such a great set of lads in the dressing room. Everyone’s fighting for each other and everyone’s pulling in the right direction which is ultimately how you exceed.

“On Wednesday night, it was a great performance from the lads and it’s time to see if we can make a good push towards the end of the year.”

Burns, who has started 24 of Town’s 31 matches in the Championship so far, was questioned as to whether talk about the recent form had affected the squad in any way.

“I think we faced it more last year really, because there was so much more pressure on us to get promoted and that was the ultimate goal,” admitted the winger.

“I think coming into this season, we didn’t set any targets at the start of the season. Our principles are that we just wanted to improve every time we come on the pitch and every time we play.

“We knew on our day we could be a big problem for anyone in the Championship.

“Did we think we would be where we are with 15 games to go? I’m not sure, but we always set out at the start of the year to take every game as it comes, give 100 per cent and we wanted to see how far we could go with it.”

As well as being a much-needed victory, Wednesday night also saw new signings Kieffer Moore and Ali Al-Hamadi both get on the scoreeshet.

This was the latter’s first goal for the Blues, while Moore’s header helped him to his third goal in as many games for Town since he signed on loan from AFC Bournemouth on transfer deadline day.

Burns was full of praise for both of McKenna’s new recruits.

“We were buzzing (for Al-Hamadi). He’s come in and been a breath of fresh air. He’s such a nice, down-to-earth lad and fits in perfectly with the hard-working ethos of the club and obviously every lad’s buzzing for him that he got his first goal.

“Kieffer has also been a breath of fresh air. the same with Trav (Lewis Travis) and Jeremy (Sarmiento), our window was strong in January in what was a quiet window all round really.”