Mick McCarthy’s arrival at Portman Road has lifted the players’ spirits, leading to a huge improvement in results.
Ipswich have climbed off the bottom of the table and out of the relegation zone after taking 10 points from their six games under the new boss.
Under predecessor Paul Jewell it was a vastly different story, with a mere seven points banked from the first 13 Championship fixtures of the campaign.
Young defender Tommy Smith is still only 22 but McCarthy is his fourth different manager since he made the breakthrough into the first team during Jim Magilton’s time at the helm.
Smith, 22, said: "When a new manager comes in it is always a breath of fresh air for any club. We’ve just been working on the gaffer’s ideas in training and hopefully they are starting to bear fruit.
"He’s 100 per cent level-headed. Straight after the win over Forest he said we shouldn’t be patting each other on the back and stroking each other’s egos.
"It’s just about applying ourselves the same way we did on Tuesday, putting the effort in and with the quality we have in the side we should be able to pick up the results we need.
"The gaffer’s come in and it’s like a clean slate really. You get another chance to impress and I’ve just been working really hard in training. He’s been talking to me one-on-one and with him being a centre-half in his playing days it’s been helping me massively.
"I can definitely benefit from that. He’s been there and done it so I can only learn from that. It’s been really good. There’s a very positive atmosphere around the place and the training methods have been really good so far.
"It’s just about the team implementing his ideas now and it looks as if we have started to do that.”