Boss Paul Jewell says his side have got to be mentally stronger if they are to compete at the top end of the table next season. The Town manager says that all too often — even before he took charge - the Blues have got themselves into good runs but have then failed to keep that form going.
Jewell said: "If you look at Ipswich even before I was here, as soon as we’ve promised a bit, we’ve let ourselves down, we haven’t got to that next level. That’s got to be a mental thing.
"When the chips are down we’ve got to make sure we fight. Or when we’re expected to win, we don’t blow up.
"Since I’ve been here we’re had too many false dawns. We get ourselves in a great little position where people start to think that if we win our next four games we’ll get in the play-offs. Then we get beaten 5-1 by Norwich, 4-1 by Swansea and 4-2 by Leicester .
"I wasn’t getting carried away about promotion but as soon as we gave our supporters a bit of hope this year, we lost against Leicester when we should have won the game.
"Then we want to put on a performance [against Millwall] we lose 3-0, even though it [shouldn’t have been] a 3-0, it was still a defeat.
"We’ve got to get to a level where our team goes out expecting to win and deals with the pressure of expecting to win. That is a mental thing as well as a physical thing.”
He admits the spell late last year when Town lost seven on the trot was hard to take: "I remember [in the bad run I was] asked if we were to get beaten on Saturday would it be curtains.
"But I have to say the owner and my staff have been terrific because there were a lot of low points this season.
"I’m a human being and I feel it as much as anybody. It was a lonely couple of months, tough. But as they say, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger and I think I’ve come through it a better manager, a stronger manager and when you have those times, which everyone does in their career, you’re ready for it.
"Hopefully I won’t have too many of them because if I have too many of them, I won’t be doing too many of these [press conferences]!”
Jewell says he’s happy living in Suffolk after 15 months in the job: "I’m settled into where I live. I’ve moved house, I’ve settled into the area, I really enjoy the area, I enjoy the football club and I’ve got a feeling for it.
"The hard part is to get the team right on the pitch. I know what it takes to get out of this league, I’ve done it twice before and I feel as if we’re closer this year to having a better squad than we were last year.”
Now that the season’s over, he says he’ll have a short time off but with preparations for next season already in his thoughts: "I’m looking forward to having a couple of days off and seeing my family, however, the work never stops, but I’m excited.
"It’s always an exciting time trying to bring players into the club and we go into the new season with the same aspiration as everybody else, which is trying to get out of the league.”