Ipswich captain Carlos Edwards has laid his cards firmly on the table to own up: “We are playing to keep the manager in his job.”
Successive away draws at Barnsley and Brighton may have ended a depressing run of three defeats on the trot but Town are still second from bottom of the table with Saturday’s defeat to Championship leaders Cardiff continuing speculation regarding Paul Jewell’s future.
Edwards admitted: "It’s all down to the players once we cross the white line and whatever team the manager picks we must go out and give 100 per cent.
"We can only do what we can when we are out on the pitch to help his cause and make the owner and the board of directors give him a bit of extra time. We can only do so much to try to make sure his job is safe.
"He will accept his fate and even if I would love to see him in the job for some time to come I am just one player.”
Edwards said the manager’s position is not proving a distraction and added: "It is not a big topic among the players and they tend to just get on with their jobs.
"We hear the whispers but the last thing we want to do is talk about whether or not the manager is going to be sacked. We don’t want players in a corner of the dressing room speculating about what is going to happen.
"We come into training every day and yes, we do have our concerns, but we just keep them to ourselves. Once the games come round and the manager picks his team we are all in it together.
"We are a good group of lads and when we lost three in a row recently we did not think it was the end of the world. We knew it would get better and we came back with two good away draws.”