Ipswich Town midfielder Massimo Luongo is determined to focus on his own team in the promotion race, but admitted that it can be difficult to block out the outside noise.
The Blues currently sit top of the Championship, although that’s unlikely to be the case when they return to action away at Hull City on April 27th. Leicester City, Leeds United and Southampton will each play at least two games between now and then, although Town will know what they need to do to secure promotion in the final week of the campaign.
No matter what, it’ll still be in their hands, although the psychological pressure will be difference. Once again, Ipswich’s top-two rivals will go first and they’ll have to react, but Luongo won’t be thinking about what’s going on elsewhere.
“It’s so hard to avoid,” he said prior to the 1-1 draw against Middlesbrough. “I get a lot of messages from my friends, ‘ah, the results are going well for you’, but I don’t want it.
“I think I was watching the Champions League on Tuesday anyway, I think everyone probably was. There were 60 minutes to play, and I thought, ‘ah, why are you texting me with 60 minutes? Text me at the end of the game!’
“I think everyone is different in how they want to approach it. I saw Vas (Hladky) before the Watford game and I asked what he’d been up to the night before, he said he watched the Leeds game. I was like ‘oh, fair enough, I watched the Champions League.’
Luongo scored the equaliser against former club Middlesbrough on Saturday (Image: Stephen Waller)
“Everyone’s different. I think, over the course of the season, I haven’t cared about anyone really, just us. It’s easy to keep doing that.
