Town manager Paul Jewell wants his side to play their own game when Wolverhampton Wanderers visit Portman Road this evening. The Blues boss ran the rule over the Midlanders, relegated from the Premier League at the end of last season, as they beat Leicester 2-1 on Sunday.
Jewell felt the Foxes might have got something against what his says is a physical Wolves unit: "They’re big and strong, quite direct. I thought Leicester were a bit unfortunate against them.
"They’ve got power and size and they got two goals from set pieces, which are vitally important in this league.
"They’ve got Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, they’ve got Kevin Doyle, front players who would get into any team in the Championship, and certainly some Premier League teams.
"But I just want us to try and concentrate on what we’re good at. Obviously we’ve got to try and stop the opposition playing but sometimes I think we’ve got to try and play on the front foot and play without fear, which is hard when we’re not winning games.
"We’ve got to show confidence and belief and man up a little bit at times, and say ‘we’ll get on the ball and we’re not frightened of making mistakes’.
"It’s going to be a tough game, but, and I say the same thing every week, one that we can win but we have to be somewhere near our best.”
Jewell says that despite Paul Taylor and Luke Chambers suffering kicks to the ankles at Middlesbrough, he has no injury problems.
Elliott Hewitt is unlikely to be involved in the first team quite yet having played only two halves for the U21s as he gets fit after his hip impingement operations, while Chieck Kourouma, whose signing was finally confirmed on Friday, is unlikely to go into the 18 straight off with the Frenchman seen as one for the future rather than the present.
Striker Ronan Murray was sent off playing for the U21s on Sunday but will serve his suspension at that level and will be available for the first team, although Nathan Ellington has impressed his manager and may take the Irishman’s place amongst the subs.
The Town boss is hoping recent signing Paul Taylor will open his Blues goals account and says he doesn’t have to try and rip the net every time he shoots: "I said to him ‘you only get one goal even if you break the net, you don’t get two’. I think he’ll be a fans’ favourite here in years to come.”
Jewell is looking for his side to get into a winning habit and get over their nervousness they suffer from at times when in front: "It’s about the confidence of winning games. When you win a game, you look forward to the next game.
"At the moment there’s a bit of trepidation, if we go a goal up we’re thinking ‘can we hang on to it?’. We want to get to the stage where we’re thinking ‘we’re going to get two, we’re going to get three, we’re going to keep the door shut at the back’.
"The inconsistency of us conceding goals has been something which has cost us because we’ve dominated games for long spells but got nothing out of them.”
Overall, he’s confident his team is capable of beating anyone in the division: "I think on any given day we can compete.
"I think we are a couple of players short, there’s no doubt about that. We’ve tried and tried to get certain types of player in but at this moment in time we haven’t been successful. But I believe we have the nucleus of a good squad to move forward.”
Scott Loach will start in goal with Carlos Edwards and Aaron Cresswell the full-backs and Luke Chambers and Tommy Smith the centre-halves.
In midfield, Jewell may well recall Massimo Luongo in place of Andy Drury alongside Guirane N’Daw. Daryl Murphy will be on one flank with Lee Martin probably starting on the right with Paul Taylor in the centre.
The former Peterborough man began the Middlesbrough game in that role before moving alongside the former England U21 international later on. Taylor may also swap roles with Martin at some stage as they did at half-time in the Huddersfield match.
Norwegian StÃ¥le Solbakken took over as Wolves manager in the summer after their relegation and their season and has admitted that the season didn’t get off to the best of starts with only one win coming from their first four games.
However, after the weekend victory over Leicester, which took them to 12th on seven points, he says things are moving in the right direction: "I see progress on the pitch and in the games but I don’t say we are a finished article — far from it.
"When you take into consideration what time we have had, it has not been an easy time. Before the transfer window shut it was hell for long periods and we could have been in a much worse position player-wise and also points-wise when I look back a month.”
The one-time Wimbledon player says Town have impressed him in their last two matches: "Ipswich have a couple of good runners up front who like to get in behind the defence and put pressure on the opposition and I think that will be their game plan.
"Ipswich are a team who can be very good and I have seen they were better than Middlesbrough for long periods and better than Huddersfield for long periods.
"They had a poor day against Blackpool — who had a good day against them — but so far we have zero points from two away games, so I think we need to concentrate on our own performance.”
Striker Sylvan Ebanks-Blake is thought likely to be available despite suffering with a tight hamstring in the Foxes game, while Stephen Hunt is in the travelling party after a spell out ill.
Town have narrowly had the better of Wolves over the years, winning 27 times (26 in the league), drawing on 20 occasions (17) and falling to 26 defeats (23).
The teams last met in a pre-season friendly at the start of last season which the then-Premier League side won 2-1.
After an impressive first period, Lee Bowyer put the Blues ahead just before half-time, but Hunt and then an Ebanks-Blake penalty won the game for the visitors after the break.
The last league meeting came at Molineux in the closing weeks of Jim Magilton’s time as Town manager in March 2009 and ended 0-0.
Both sides had chances with Ebanks-Blake hitting the bar for the home side, who were top of the Championship and on their way to promotion at the time, while Jon Stead missed a golden opportunity late on for the Blues.
Earlier that season, Wolves had left from Portman Road with a 2-0 win with Ebanks-Blake and David Edwards scoring the goals and Alex Bruce seeing red for a two-footed lunge. Manager Magilton slammed his side’s performance as "embarrassing”.
Blues skipper Carlos Edwards is the only player on either side to have represented tonight’s opposition, making five starts and one sub appearance while on loan at Molineux in 2008. Blues coach Mark Kennedy wore the old gold from 2001 until 2006.
Prior to kick-off Paralympians Zoe Newson, who won a powerlifting bronze medal, shot putter Jonathan Adams and javelin thrower Scott Moorhouse will take part in a lap of honour.
Tonight’s referee is Graham Scott from Oxfordshire, who has shown 11 yellow cards and no reds in five games so far this season.
Perhaps worryingly, Scott’s most recent Town match was the 7-1 defeat at Peterborough last season in which he red-carded Lee Martin and Tommy Smith, the first time a Blues side had ever been reduced to nine men, with the New Zealand international’s dismissal relating to a very controversial penalty. Damien Delaney and Grant Leadbitter were amongst four players booked.
Squad from: Loach, Lee-Barrett, Edwards, Cresswell, Ainsley, Smith, Chambers, N’Daw, Luongo, Drury, Hyam, Martin, Murphy, Emmanuel-Thomas, Carson, Taylor, Chopra, Scotland, Ellington, Murray.