Loan signing Aaron Mclean believes Ipswich must seize the opportunity to move up the table when they take on fellow strugglers in each of their next two games.
Town may have earned praise for holding leaders Cardiff to a goalless draw in Wales last week but anything other than a win at home to Barnsley tomorrow will be viewed with huge disappointment.
Next up for Mick McCarthy and his players, on January 26th, is a trip back down the M4 and a clash with a Bristol City side currently bottom of the Championship but buoyed by the appointment of new boss Sean O’Driscoll, for whom the fixture will mark his first home game in charge.
Mclean said: "Us, Barnsley and Bristol, we’re all down there so it’s going to be important for us to make sure we are picking up points from these teams.
"If we can’t beat the teams around us in the league we’re giving ourselves a tall order. We need to make sure we come out of these two games with positive results and move on from there.”
As his home debut looms Mclean reflected on the trip to Wales when he started alongside fellow new boy David McGoldrick, signed on loan from Nottingham Forest but who has already agreed a two-year contract with Town that will start on July 1st.
Mclean added: "I was excited to get my first start and it was a good result. Cardiff are a good team and they’re probably going to get promoted this year, so for us to go there and be only the second team to stop them from winning at their place was good for us.
"We knew it was going to be a tall order because they had won 12 out of 13 at home. To go there, with the form they were in, it was always going to be a hard game. We all worked hard down there and if we can continue to do that from now until May we’ll have a good second half of the season.
"David is a very good player. He’s an intelligent player and a bit different to myself. My game is about wanting to get in behind and playing on the shoulder of the last defender.
"He can do that as well but he is also good at linking the play up. I think we’ll work well together.”