Matt Ingram has the rare distinction of being a footballer who’s never suffered the ignominy of being dropped in his career.

After Jordan Archer was recalled by parent club Tottenham Hotspur in March 2013 a then 19-year-old Ingram was thrust into the starting XI for his professional debut against Accrington Stanley.

The homegrown stopper has not missed a match since and against Southend on Saturday he made his 100th appearance for the club.

Ingram, now 21, says he is hugely grateful to his current manager for sticking with him on his way to a century of appearances in a Wanderers shirt.

“I’m still only young and to play 100 games is a great achievement,” he said.

“Firstly I owe a lot to Gareth Ainsworth he’s taught me so much and he’s kept me as his goalkeeper ever since I broke into the first team so I have to say a massive thank you to him.

“At the moment we’re just concentrating on getting promotion and seeing where that takes us. We’re sitting pretty at the moment, we’re five points above fourth, we’re three points off the top and we’ve got a great chance.”

It’s easy to forget that this is just Ingram’s second full season in senior football, given the authority with which he commands his back four and the ability which has seen him keep 25 clean sheets for the club.

Ingram has revelled in the Blues’ journey to League Two’s automatic promotion spots in the current campaign, and his fledgling Wanderers career has already seen fights at both ends of the table.

He said: “It’s a different sort of pressure this year. Obviously last year we had the pressure of trying to stay in the league because if the club did go down who knows what could have happened.

“This year it’s a nicer pressure to be pushing for the automatic promotion places. Last year there were definitely a few highs and lows.

“Staying up was a massive high. Lows, probably my mistake against Northampton when I scored an own-goal. It was a big game, third or fourth before the end of the season and that was a big blow.”

Any regular visitor to Adams Park in the past few seasons will have been able to chart the rise of a player who manager Gareth Ainsworth believes will one day be seen at the highest level of English football.

“He’s destined for bigger things – that’s all I can say,” said Ainsworth.

“He’s of definite Championship, Premiership quality. I can see the potential there and once that comes out I think there will be no stopping him. It’s great to have him at the moment and what a fabulous achievement for someone so young to do 100 games consecutively.”

For now though Ingram is happy to continue his development under the tutelage of the manager who had the faith to throw him in against Accrington two years ago rather than warm the bench or play in the reserves for one of the few Premier League teams that have courted him.

“I’ve developed loads,” says Ingram when asked how far he’s come since his debut.

“The main area I think I’ve developed in is game management and stuff like that. You can train as much as you want on the training pitch but you’ll never get the match experience.”

He added: “I think it might be worth a few players [from Premier League teams] dropping down into League Two, League One because you get the opportunities whereas in the Premier League they’ve got under-21 leagues and stuff like that but you might not get an opportunity [in the first team].

“I’m glad I’m at Wycombe because I’ve been exposed to the first team from a young age and I can aspire to be where I want to be.”