Town boss Mick McCarthy would be quite happy with a scrappy 1-0 victory over Blackpool at Portman Road today and would be equally delighted if several more were to follow as the Blues look to hang on to their Championship status.
In their current predicament — one point from the bottom three in 20th place in the table — McCarthy says Town are in no position to be fussy and admits he'd be happy to play badly as long as his side took the three points today: "And I’d settle for another five.
"Wherever they’re going to come from, scrappy, horrible, scruffy, ugly 1-0 wins, it doesn’t matter, you’ve just got to get the points.
"I don’t think we’re in a position where we can be expansive and choosy about how we play. Yes, we want to play well, yes we want to have good performances, yes we want to entertain everybody, but we want to stay in the league. That’s first and foremost.”
He added: "Until we can settle down and be confident and free-flowing, we need to just keep picking up points.”
McCarthy believes most matches in this division are very tight, citing the 4-0 victory over Middlesbrough at Portman Road a fortnight ago and last week’s 1-0 loss at Blackburn.
"The games change on goals scored,” he said. "The [Middlesbrough] game was fairly stalemate and we got a great goal from a corner kick — a good delivery and a good goal.
"A bit like last week at Blackburn, the game was fairly stalemate, then they got a goal from a corner kick and they go on to win it. Pretty small margins.”
McCarthy is happy with his team’s current approach to games which he says has served them well since he took over as manager on November 1st with the Blues then rock bottom, five points from safety: "You’ve got to be hard to beat. We’re not in a position that we’re suddenly going to change the way we play because the way we play has got us good results.
"The way we play and the way the players have approached it has got us into the position we’re in.”