Town winger Jack Clarke hopes victory on the opening day of the season can set the Blues on a different trajectory to their last Premier League season two years ago.
Clarke’s late winner off the bench ensured the Gary O’Neil era got off to the perfect start with a 2-1 victory over Sunderland at Portman Road.
On their top-flight return in 2024, Town were handed a baptism of fire with eventual champions Liverpool and reigning champions Manchester City inside the first two matches of the season.
It took the Blues until their 11th league match of the campaign to register a victory when Kieran McKenna’s side claimed all three points against Tottenham Hotspur in November.
This time around, O’Neil’s side have already matched their total of home wins from two years ago, a statistic that Clarke hopes can breed its own momentum.
“It took us a while to get going last time,” the 25-year-old said. “I don’t think the schedule helped us too much last time in the Premier League. We felt like we were good in games and coming out on the wrong end of certain scenarios.
“It’s a ruthless league, you give teams half a chance and all of a sudden you’re walking off in despair. We knew we had to put that right this season and stay in games as long as possible.
“In comparison to last season, we’ve gone from being a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a big pond. It’s nice to be the underdog and the team that no one’s expecting too much from you.
“You get that element of being able to play with freedom and I think you could see that [against Sunderland]. We tried to stay in shape and make it difficult for them, but when we got the opportunities to go forward and threaten, I thought we did that.”
The financial gulf has meant survival as a newly promoted side has become more difficult in recent years, but the performances of both Sunderland and Leeds United last season bucked the trend.
Town are perhaps looking to take inspiration from the Black Cats, who defied the odds to finish seventh and qualify for the Europa League in their maiden campaign back at the top level.
Clarke said: “The season we came up, all three went back down. Last year, Leeds and Sunderland managed to do the unthinkable nowadays, and Sunderland went above and beyond what anybody could have expected.
“It gives everyone belief that we can do it and it can be done, and you’re striving to replicate it.”
While it was Clarke and summer signing Emersonn who got the goals on the opening day, Julio Enciso was widely viewed as the standout on what was his second debut for the club.
The Paraguay international, who signed from Strasbourg on Monday, showed plenty of magic and was at the source of the opening goal of the game when he skipped past both Sunderland centre-halves.
“Everybody could feel it coming to the stadium,” Clarke said. “When you bring in a player of that quality and calibre, it can only make the group stronger. You saw a glimpse of it for the first goal of what he’s capable of doing. We’re hoping as a group he can stay fit and do it all season.
“To be honest, I think it caught [O’Neil] a little bit off guard because Julio went off quite abruptly. At that point, it was 1-1.
“I don’t know if we would have been happy with a draw, but it was to go on and try and do the same. There wasn’t much because it happened so quickly.”
Immediately, attention turns to what comes next with the midweek Carabao Cup visit of Leicester City quickly followed by next Sunday’s first away match of the season against Manchester United at Old Trafford.
Asked about the prospect of putting a six-point buffer between themselves and the Red Devils, Clarke said: “We’re not trying to think about that too much. The gaffer is focusing on the next game, doing the right things, sticking to the game plan and seeing where it can get.
“They’re a very good team, but they lost to Hull. There’s opportunities there and we’ll know that. We’ll try and replicate it, even try to take it up a level and give them as good a game as possible, and see where that can take us.
“We’ll give every game our full focus like we always do, but some are going to be harder than others. When you play the big boys, you get fewer opportunities.
“A lot of people are going to write us off before we even get there, but we’ve got a lot of belief that we can give them a game. If we stay in the game and get opportunities, who knows?”
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