Match-winner Ben Pringle believes the Blues’ ability to grind out six vital points in their last two games shows they have what it takes to be serious play-off contenders.

The Fulham loanee followed up his winner at Huddersfield with the only goal as Ipswich beat Nottingham Forest at Portman Road on Saturday, leaving them just a point behind Sheffield Wednesday in sixth with a game in hand.

While the Blues passed the ball more freely than they have in recent weeks during the win over Forest, Pringle insisted digging in and grinding out points is exactly what is required in the Championship, rather than trying to pass teams into submission.

“I have seen enough here to get into play-offs,” Pringle said.

“It is about how teams play and the manager knows what it takes to get out of this league.

“Some managers try to play football and try and pass their way to success. You can’t do that in the Championship. You have to play the long ball, you have to fight and scrap as we have shown in the past two games, which have got us six points.”

“Nothing could be worse than the football at Huddersfield, so it had to be better against Forest, and at times we played some nice football and managed to put them on the back foot.

“It was another good win and another three points. That’s what it is about.

“No matter how we play we kept going and ground it out again.”

Despite a place in the top six now being just a point away, Pringle insisted manager Mick McCarthy isn’t allowing his players to become consumed by the race for promotion.

“The manager has said for us not to get too excited when we are near it and don’t get too annoyed when we are not,” he said.

“We still have many games to go and it is very tight. As we have shown you win a couple of games and you move up so we try not to get too sucked in by it all.”

Pringle also reserved praise for goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski, who made a string of saves to keep the Blues level before Pringle’s winner.

He said: “Bart pulled off a couple of good saves early on, which is what you want from your goalkeeper, then we managed to see off the threat before we played some good stuff and managed to nick it.”