Town boss Paul Jewell says it’s not surprising that his squad are lacking belief after the heavy defeats to Peterborough and Southampton but knows they’ve got to overcome "that fear" sooner rather than later. Earlier in the week, midfielder-turned-right-back Carlos Edwards said he felt that there was a lack of belief amongst the players.
Jewell said: "I think when you lose games five and seven that’s going to be the case. Belief is confidence, they’re the same thing.
"If Carlos doesn’t believe, he might be leaving himself out!" he joked. "But it’s not just at Ipswich that there’s a lack of belief. That happens in football. "
The Blues manager feels that lack of confidence was evident at Bloomfield Road: "You could see that on Saturday.
"I watched the Blackpool game again on Sunday morning. In the first half there was nothing in the game, then in the second half, after they scored, we probably didn’t believe we could get back in it, even though we had three opportunities when we were two goals down to get back in it.
"We’ve got to get over that fear, " he added. "We’ve got to get over the lack of confidence bit because we’ve got good players in the team.
"But we’ve got a lot of new players. I think we had eight new players plus Jimmy in the team on Saturday and it’s going to take time to bed things down, for people to get to know one another’s games. But we’ve got to do that sooner rather than later.”
As for Edwards, there has been much discussion amongst supporters on whether the 32-year-old ought to be switched to the right midfield role but the Blues boss says he currently has no plans to push the Trinidadian further forward: "You’re always a better player when you’re not in the team with fans and you’re always a better player when you’re playing in a different position.
"I didn’t see a massive backlash when he went to right-back from wide right from fans. The fans are entitled to their opinions.
"I see the players day in and day out and at the moment I think Carlos is our best option at right-back, but it is an area where we need to improve and need to get someone in to give Carlos a bit of competition for the place.
"He says there’s a lack of belief but sometimes there’s a lack of competition in a position and it might not be doing him a favour.”
One of the players Jewell was likely to be eyeing when he watched Sheffield United lose 3-0 to Huddersfield on Tuesday was Blades right-back Matt Lowton.