In the Adams Park tunnel an hour after the final whistle, following a defeat which all but ended Wanderers’ automatic promotion hopes, Matt Ingram was looking at the bigger picture.

As the 21-year-old, whose man-of-the-match display saw him make a series of remarkable saves to keep Blues in the game against Morecambe, battled the disappointment of defeat he put it into context from where the club had come from last season.

It was almost a year to the day of Wanderers’ final home game of the last campaign in which a 2-1 loss to Bristol Rovers looked to have consigned them to the Conference.

This time round Blues are guaranteed a play-off place – unless another miracle can’t be pulled off against Northampton next weekend.

“We’d have snapped your hand off if you’d have offered us that (a play-off place) at the start of the season,” said the home grown stopper.

“I think everyone’s just disappointed because of the position we’ve been in. I don’t think we’ve dropped out of the top three for goodness knows how long, but we’ve got to look at the big picture and it’s a great place to be.

“Last season we were relying on other teams to lose and for us to win, and we managed to do it. It’s the same again this season.

“The bonus for us this season is we have the play-offs if results don’t go our way, whereas last season it was the conference waiting.”

Ingram pulled off a number of great stops, one of which saw him leave most of the crowd astonished at how he’d reached Alex Kenyon’s header which had looked destined for the far corner.

Chants of “he’s one of our own” rang out from a bumper home crowd, and the majority of those in attendance stayed to applaud the team, which has amassed the most amount of points in the club’s history, on their lap of honour.

Ingram said: “The amount of fans that stayed, even after a loss, was unbelievable. The fans have been brilliant all of this season.

“I think the gaffer, Dobbo (Richard Dobson) and Baz (Barry Richardson) deserve a lot of credit for the players they bought in and what they’ve done with such a small squad this season.

When asked whether he could believe the turnaround from last season the ’keeper replied: “Not quite.

“Last season was horrible and the aim this season was just to avoid that. Like the gaffer said at the start of the season, the aim was just to get 55 points and we’ve by far exceeded that.

“It’s been a great season for Wycombe Wanderers. We’ve beaten the total points tally and we’re still sitting pretty because we’ve got the play-offs as a consolation prize if we don’t go up automatically.”