Town boss Paul Jewell says there’s no panic at Portman Road despite the underwhelming beginning to the season which sees his side sitting 19th in the Championship as they go into tonight’s live Sky game at home to Coventry City (Sky Sports One/HD1 7.30pm).
Jewell said: "The message to the fans is that we’re disappointed with the start but we’re aware that there’s a long way to go yet. There’s no panic, no drama.
"If we pick up six points over the next two or three games, the league looks completely different. It’s very early days. We’re disappointed with the start, but we’re also aware that we’re a new team with a lot of new players and hopefully we can kick on as a team and as a group.
"At this moment in time, things haven’t gone our way and we’ve had a couple of really bad beatings. In the Leeds game, we came back and it was a great win but then the last thing we probably then needed was two weeks off, but that’s football.”
The Blues boss said after the Blackpool defeat that he didn’t know his best team and was looking for a winning formula, something he thinks may be best achieved by sticking with a settled side rather than looking for that blend by switching things around more regularly: "Maybe it’s time for me to just to see how things go, rather than chop and change all the time searching for results. Let’s look at a system and see if we can play with that for a couple of games and see if it works.
"I would like to play 4-4-2 with wide players with a bit of pace on the outside, but we haven’t had that [option]. We’ve missed Lee Martin while he’s been suspended.
"Josh Carson broke on to the scene last year but he’s only 18 and he’s a long-term prospect, although he’ll always do his best. JET’s learning the game, he’s finding it tough really because we’re getting him fit, but in three months’ time you’ll see a different player.
"He’s got terrific ability, now we’ve got make sure we get that fitness level and that desire into him. I think if we get that into him I think we’ve got a player. I know at times he’s frustrating, but there are some young players here who I think will be decent.”
Confidence and belief have been much discussed over the last week and Jewell, speaking on Friday, says it’s not just Town who have issues of that type: "Is Fernando Torres a good player? He doesn’t look it at the moment, does he?
"It doesn’t matter how much he cost, how good a player you’ve been or how good a player you are, if you lose confidence and it’s a new team or a new blend of players [it has an effect].
"We all know it’s not clicking at the moment. We know that, the players know that, but given the right time and a bit of fortune, it will.”
The Blues boss says you wouldn’t know that his team are on a poor run of form based on their daily sessions at Playford Road: "If you came and watched training, you wouldn’t think that we’d only won two games out of six.
"We’ve got Jimmy there, Chopra, it’s lively. Training is excellent. It’s just that at the moment when we go over that white line, when things go a little bit wobbly, we concede goals very quickly.
"Rather than just conceding one, sticking together and trying to batten the hatches down for five or 10 minutes and seeing if we can ride the storm, at the moment when there’s a storm we’re getting a bit wet.
"We’ve got enough experience in the team to do that, and we’ve got enough good people. I’m 100% certain that in three or months’ time we’ll be talking about being further up the table than we are now.”
The Liverpudlian says the Sky Blues may have got a break in last week’s 2-0 victory over Derby but in previous weeks fortune hasn’t always favoured them: "It was their first victory against Derby, albeit with the penalty that Derby disputed and which changed the game.
"They’ve been unfortunate on a couple of occasions, there was little in their game against Middlesbrough. That’s the league all over - games can go either way.
"What we’ve got to do is get a run of games and confidence. I watched a match the other night [Sheffield United-Huddersfield] and one of the teams [Huddersfield] hadn’t lost for 33 games and they never looked for one minute like they would lose.
"Without ever being brilliant, they just had that look about them which said that they weren’t going to lose which comes with winning games.”
It’s that type of winning mentality he wants to instil in his squad, but he says it takes time — and wins: "That takes an awful lot of victories and a bit of fortune and that’s where we want to be.
"When I was manager of Bradford, if we went a goal down, the first thing we’d think was that we’ve got Lee Mills and Robbie Blake up front, so at least we’ll get two goals. Same at Wigan, we had Nathan Ellington and Jason Roberts, so we thought at least we’d score goals.
"Let’s be honest, at the moment, when we go a goal down, we think ‘bloody hell!’. We’ve got to get over that and we will get over that, we’ve got too many good players here not to get over it. But it takes time.”
Jewell is unlikely to stray too far from the side which lost at Blackpool, although having matched the recently relegated Premier League team in the first half.
David Stockdale will continue in goal with Carlos Edwards at right-back and Aaron Cresswell on the left.
Ibrahima Sonko hasn’t trained much since joining the club due to a hamstring problem but is likely to be fit enough to play alongside Danny Collins at the centre of the defence. Ãvar Ingimarsson is back after his thigh injury and played for the reserves against Gillingham last week and could be amongst the subs.
The Blues boss has most of his most difficult decisions to make in midfield, particularly with regard to his central players. If he goes with a 4-4-2 formation, he’ll have to choose which pair to play in the centre and whether to play any of them in wide roles.
Keith Andrews and Jimmy Bullard are likely to start in the middle, while skipper Grant Leadbitter or Lee Bowyer will probably be used wide on the right with one dropping out, probably Bowyer, who has yet to hit full fitness or top form since moving to the club.
Daryl Murphy is likely to continue on the left with Lee Martin serving the final game of his suspension. Mark Kennedy is again out with his calf problem.
Up front, Jason Scotland looks likely to partner Michael Chopra after a couple of sharp substitute appearances from the Trinidadian. Nathan Ellington, scorer of a hat-trick for the reserves, will be on the bench.
Coventry boss Andy Thorn says Town are a difficult prospect for his young side, who are one place and one point behind the Blues: "Ipswich are ready-made with experience so it will be a tough game but I have got every faith in our boys.
"They have a good manager and players who have played in the Premiership and know their way around this division, so it will be a good test for us.
"There is a big contrast. We’re trying to build a young team which takes time and we haven’t got time, so we have been trying to push it along and we have got a good nucleus of young players who have got to learn quickly.
"I think what happened at Crystal Palace [conceding two goals in the final minute to lose 2-1] brought us on a ton because you can’t buy that experience. It wasn’t a nice thing but it made us wise up a lot quicker.
"There is nothing like having that experience under your belt and, whether it is good or bad, you know how to deal with it next time.
"We had the Watford game after that and away to Boro and then Saturday, so I think we grew from it.
"Through the grey clouds I think we are coming out the other side looking a really good young side.”
Sky Blues keeper Joe Murphy is a doubt with the hamstring injury which forced him off at half-time against Derby. Chris Dunn made his debut as a sub in that game and will start if the Irish international fails to make it.
Winger Gary McSheffrey and striker Freddy Eastwood are fit, also after hamstring problems, while striker Clive Platt is also ready for a first team return after a number of reserves matches.
The Sky Blues will definitely be without midfielder Gary Deegan and defender Richard Wood, who both have thigh problems.
Town have a good record against Coventry over the years, winning 36 games (34 in the league), losing 22 times (20) and with 23 matches (22) ending in draws.
Loanee Rory Fallon’s only goal for Town helped the Blues to a 1-1 New Year’s Day draw at the Ricoh Arena in the most recent game between the sides.
The New Zealander’s strike just before the break put the Blues in front, but Freddy Eastwood hit back straight after half-time, prior to Marlon King receiving a straight red card for a late challenge on Darren O’Dea, with Roy Keane’s Town unable to make the most of their advantage.
Earlier in the season in October, Jason Scotland scored his fourth goal for Town but it wasn’t enough to prevent the Blues from falling to a 2-1 home defeat to the Sky Blues.
The visitors, who had previously been without a win at Portman Road since 1994, went ahead through Clive Platt in the first half and went further in front via a Lukas Jutkiewicz penalty, before Scotland netted for the Blues, who pressed for an equaliser without success.
No current Coventry player has appeared for Town’s first team, although defender Richard Keogh was a Blues academy schoolboy and ballboy as a teenager. Coventry's chief executive is ex-Town commercial director Paul Clouting.
Town keeper Arran Lee-Barrett spent six months at the Ricoh Arena from January 2007, initially on loan from Weymouth, but failed to make a senior appearance. Midfielder Colin Healy was on loan with the Sky Blues in 2002 when a Celtic player.
An online version of tonight's matchday programme is available via the club from here.
Tonight’s referee is Craig Pawson from South Yorkshire, who has shown 27 yellow cards and a slightly concerning three reds in five games so far this season.
Pawson’s most recent Town match was the 1-1 home draw with Hull in February in which he booked only Grant Leadbitter. His only other Blues game was the 0-0 draw at Swansea in March 2010 when his yellow card again came out just the once when it was shown to Swans midfielder Darren Pratley.
Squad from: Stockdale, Lee-Barrett, Edwards, Cresswell, Sonko, Collins, Ainsley, Delaney, Ingimarsson, Bullard, Andrews, Leadbitter, Bowyer, Carson, Emmanuel-Thomas, Murphy, Chopra, Scotland, Ellington.