Manager Mick McCarthy says he’s loving life at Portman Road. The Blues boss took over on November 1st and has picked up 23 points out of 36 in the 12 games since then, with his team climbing from bottom of the table to 19th.
"I’m loving my job, I’m really enjoying it,” he said. "I’m enjoying being here, it’s a fabulous club, everybody told me.
"I didn’t know a lot about it, apart from having been here and played a lot. I knew it was a long way from everywhere, so when we travel that’s a bit of a burden, but when they all come here it’s a bit of a burden for everybody else. It’s a long way, so I take a positive out of that.
"It really is a terrific place and I’m enjoying it. I’d like to be here for a long time.
"Some of the journalists have a lot to be desired, mind. No, even those lads aren’t bad so far, maybe if I lose a couple I’ll find out!
"It’s great, I’m enjoying it and I’d like to stay. I’ve not come here for the short term. Everywhere I’ve been I’ve been there for a while.
"I had three and a half years at Millwall, nearly seven years with Ireland, three years with Sunderland and nearly six with Wolves, so I’m not somebody who ups sticks and leaves too quickly.”
He admits the beginning to his Town tenure has been better than he could have hoped for: "It’s been a great start and the players deserve a lot of credit for that.
"They would have been getting a lot of stick when it was going wrong, so let’s give them a lot of credit when it’s going right.”
The Blues boss says his players are flying after their back to back away wins at Charlton and Wolves: "They are, but they probably got the results because they were flying before that, even with the defeat at Leeds and our draw with Bristol City. It just proves that the wins prior to that weren’t just flukes.
"Losing one and drawing one didn’t make us so fragile that we couldn’t cope with it. I’m really pleased, they were both good performances, especially at Wolves on Saturday when I thought the players were excellent and showed great levels of fitness and workrate. I was really pleased with that. It was one of the better performances.”
He says he doesn’t know what has led to the remarkable change in form: "I’ve no idea. After the first game at Birmingham, we’d won and I had a pop at them. I said that I shouldn’t really be stood there because if you can play like that Paul wouldn’t have left the club and I wouldn’t be here.
"I think they were a little bit surprised at that. But they’ve given me everything, that’s for certain. There’s never been a game, even at Palace and at Leicester, where I could have come out and said we didn’t work hard enough, we weren’t fully at it.
"We didn’t play well and we were well beaten but the effort and workrate were always there. I don’t know. It works sometimes for one manager and it doesn’t work for another.
"Paul’s a good man and a good manager, I’ve had his support, he has been very kind with his messages to me and he’s delighted for us.”
But despite the current run, the Blues boss is well aware of the "fragile” nature of Championship form and says he’s still very much focused on getting the Blues away from the bottom of the table rather than having any thoughts beyond that: "When we can’t go down I’ll start looking up.”