Town boss Roy Keane will go into Sunday’s live Sky game at Coventry City targeting nothing less than promotion from his first full season in charge at Portman Road (KO 12.45pm).
The Town manager says pre-season is one thing but now he’s ready for the main event: "I’m looking forward to it. We’ve enjoyed pre-season, four or five weeks of training hard and a few games, but the real action starts Sunday.
"The start of every season is the same, there’s that excitement and anticipation, that’s why we love the game. We’re really looking forward to it because, fingers crossed, we think we’re going to have a really good season.”
Asked his target for the season, Keane is in no doubt whatsoever: "Promotion, absolutely 100%.
"If we don’t do it this year, certainly, if by the end of my contract in two years’ time we’re not promoted, I would class that as failure. None of this mid-table business, I think any half-decent manager can get teams to mid-table in the Championship.
"I want to be one of the best managers around. That will come from experience and, hopefully, my Sunderland experience will stand me in good stead because, despite one or two bad decisions I made, I think I did some decent stuff up there.”
While Keane feels his side have a good chance of winning promotion, he admits that they’re still a couple of players light: "I think we’re short, maybe, three players, but we’ll be working hard over the next few days to put that right. We’ve got to focus on Sunday with the group of players that we have and I’m very pleased with them.
"When I took the job at the end of last season, I spoke to the players as a group and said we’d be pushing them, we’d be testing them and I said at the time that some players would fall by the wayside and a few already have.”
The Blues boss says you can’t tell too much about the season overall from the early matches: "I think in your first few games you never know what you’re going to get because it takes five or six games for the players to get up to speed.
"You can do all the training you want, it’s the match sharpness you need, but I hope that like every time you come to see Ipswich, you’re going to see a good, entertaining team.
"What I’ve tried to focus on is a lot more energy and a bit more pace in our team than last year. I think we were very predictable last year, we need to be like Ipswich have been over the years, we need to be nice on the eye, but winning.”
Keane says he has a side in his thoughts for the trip to the Ricoh: "I’ve probably got a starting XI in mind for Sunday, but if there is movement in the transfer market over the next 48 hours, then that might change it slightly.
"I tend to work day to day with my team and see who’s training well, who’s mentally prepared, who’s on time, who’s doing the bits we ask them to do, and that could change, but from what I’ve seen in pre-season, I probably have my starting XI in my head at the moment.”
New midfielder Colin Healy has a one-match suspension carried over from his time with Cork City, but would miss out with injury in any case due to infected blisters picked up during the two-day session with the army last week. The Irishman may be OK for the Carling Cup trip to Shrewsbury on Tuesday when Keane will play a much-changed side.
Pablo Couñago is out with the groin injury he picked up early in pre-season, while Ben Thatcher is unlikely to be included having played only one reserve game after recovering from the knee injury he picked up at the end of last season. Luciano Civelli is out until the new year with his knee ligament injury.
Full-back David Wright came through the reserve game at Bury without a problem and is likely to come into a squad which otherwise will be much the same as the one which beat Real Valladolid 3-1 last Friday.
Keane says new loan signing Jack Colback will go straight into his squad and hints that the 19-year-old Sunderland central midfielder might not be the last loanee from a top flight club joining the Blues this summer: "I know for a fact there were several clubs in for Jack, but Brucey knows me well.
"He and the other managers I spoke to with regard to bringing players in at the end of last week - I spoke to Harry Redknapp yesterday about Gio when he was here last year - they know they’ll get looked after, they’ll know they’ll come to a real club with a manager who makes sure they’re training properly and they’re on time. That, hopefully, helps with our dealings with teams in the Premiership.”
The Blues are likely to line-up in the 4-3-3 formation they have used throughout pre-season with Richard Wright in goal, David Wright at right-back (with Alex Bruce his deputy if the former Wigan man isn’t fit enough to return), Damien Delaney on the left and skipper Gareth McAuley and Pim Balkestein in the centre.
Owen Garvan will probably take the midfield holding role in the absence of Healy with David Norris and Liam Trotter or Jaime Peters making up the midfield three. Up front, Jon Stead will be in the centre with Jon Walters on the right and Lee Martin on the left.
New signing Tamás Priskin will also travel but will probably not starts, while Connor Wickham is also likely to be amongst the seven subs and is likely to be one of the three used.
The Town manager, who says further members of the current squad could go before the transfer window closes on August 31st, has had Coventry watched in recent weeks: "We’ve seen enough of them in pre-season and we played them at the end of last season. They’ve made one or two changes, like ourselves.
"We expect a tough game, that’s what the Championship’s all about, but one the staff, the players and myself are looking forward to. This is what it’s all about and we want to be here in a year’s time looking forward to the start of the Premiership.”
Coventry boss Chris Coleman has lost two players he brought in towards the end of last season: "We’ve been very unfortunate. David Bell has had a good pre-season but his ankle is not 100%. We’ll see where we go with that, but it looks as if he might need a little bit more surgery to get it right and we’ll be without him for perhaps a month.
"We knew David had a problem and we took that into account when we signed him, but he’s here for the long term as is James McPake who, sadly, is going to be out for two or three months.
"I feel so sorry for James because he is desperate to do well; he throws himself into every challenge and against Dunfermline he was unlucky to land awkwardly and break his collarbone.”
Veteran defender Marcus Hall is also out with a knee injury. The Sky Blues’ summer recruits include former Canary Sammy Clingan, ex-Bristol City winger Michael McIndoe and Chelsea defender Patrick van Aanholt, who signed on loan on Friday, while Michael Doyle has joined Leeds United on a season-long loan, Scott Dann has moved to Birmingham and Danny Fox to Celtic.
Town have a good record against Coventry over the years, winning 35 games (33 in the league), losing 20 times (18) and with 22 matches (21) ending in draws.
In December, the teams drew 2-2 at the Ricoh Arena, Kevin Lisbie scoring twice for the Blues and Clinton Morrison and Freddy Eastwood for the Sky Blues.
On the final day of last season, Town won 2-1 at Portman Road, Giovani Dos Santos and Pablo Couñago scoring for the Blues and Morrison again on target for Chris Coleman’s men.
No current Coventry player has appeared for Town, while midfielder Colin Healy was on loan with the Sky Blues in 2002 when a Celtic player. The Irishman subsequently suffered a broken leg when playing against Coventry for Sunderland and may be pleased to be missing Sunday’s game due to his ban.
Sunday’s referee is Russell Booth form Nottinghamshire, who last season showed 52 yellow and three red cards in 23 games. Booth’s last Town game was the 1-1 draw at home to Cardiff in April 2008. More recently he was the official at Charlton on the final day of last season as the Addicks beat Norwich City 4-2 to send the Canaries down to League One.
Prior to the game there will be a minute’s applause for Sir Bobby Robson, as there will be at all Football League matches this weekend and all Premier League fixtures in a week’s time.
Likely squad: R Wright, Supple, D Wright, Delaney, Bruce, McAuley, Balkestein, Smith, Garvan, Trotter, Norris, Colback, Quinn, Peters, Lambe, Martin, Walters, Stead, Priskin, Wickham.