Boss Paul Jewell said his side needs to find a level of consistency having followed Saturday’s battling 0-0 draw at Leeds with last night’s disappointing 3-0 home defeat to Watford. The Town manager says too many of his players are hiding when things go against them.
Jewell said: "Inconsistency equals where we are in the table because most of the consistent teams will be in the higher echelons of the league.
"I just don’t know what I’m going to get out of the players week-in, week-out at the minute. We’re up and down too much. We’ve got to get a level of consistency that’s acceptable and the last [few home] games haven’t been acceptable, both the performances and the results.
"I always hate getting beaten but we lost against Portsmouth and played well, but against Reading we didn’t and against Watford, for all the huffing and puffing we did, what happens in the two boxes is what pays the rent.
"When you analyse why we lost the game, I think they’ve had two shots on target in the second half. I’m not saying they didn’t deserve to win, but between the boxes we’ve had plenty of the ball but when it goes in the box, have we got enough people who want to score a goal?
"The brutal answer is no and that puts a lot of pressure on the back four to stop goals and the manner of the goals we gave away [was poor], certainly the first one was a bit comical.”
The Blues boss says Town still have work to do to ensure Championship football next season: "We’ve got lots to do to improve to be where we want to be. I think we’re 12 points clear of the bottom three.
"What disappoints me is that when things don’t go our way too many people are hiding - we lose confidence too quickly.
"We’ve got to get more inner belief and a bit more steely determination about ourselves. When it’s not going well, grind something out.
"We ground something out at Leeds, we got a great result at Cardiff, but that’s typical of our season - one week we’re good, the next week we’re poor.
"When we’re not very good, we’ve got to be OK. That’s what teams that get success do — when they’re not at their best they still don’t lose games.”
Jewell will be looking to avoid a fourth successive home defeat when Scunthorpe are in Suffolk at the weekend: "We have to dust ourselves down, come back in in the morning and start again against Scunthorpe on Saturday.”
The Iron sacked manager Ian Baraclough this morning in the wake of last night’s 3-0 home defeat to fellow strugglers Preston. Assistant manager Kevin Pressman and first team coach Steve Parkin have also left Glanford Park. Youth coach Tony Daws has been named caretaker-manager.
Meanwhile, Town say that problems with the commentary on last night’s game on their Ipswich Player service was down to technical issues affecting Perform Group, who host their website and those of many other Football League sides, with other clubs also affected.