Town nemesis David Nugent is rated as a doubt ahead of Leicester City’s visit to Portman Road on Saturday. The one-time England striker has a remarkable scoring record against the Blues and on Suffolk soil.
Nugent has scored in each of his previous matches at Portman Road, a record of seven goals in six games for the Foxes, Preston, Pompey and the England U21s.
At all venues, the 27-year-old, a target of former Blues bosses Jim Magilton and Paul Jewell, has scored 11 in 11 against Town.
However, Foxes assistant boss Craig Shakespeare told their club site that the striker may miss out the chance to add to his haul this weekend due to a neck injury: "At the moment David Nugent is touch and go, although he’s improving all the time.
"[Physio] Dave Rennie is getting his magic hands on him, but we’ll have to give it another 24 hours to see.
"We’ve a few bruises in the squad from heavy challenges, but the players are picking themselves up. When you’re playing Saturday and Tuesday you sometimes don’t do as much intensity in training, but everyone is ready a raring to go."
Nugent scored twice in the Foxes’ 6-0 thrashing of Town at the King Power Stadium earlier in the season, before making way in the 31st minute, also due to a neck problem, but Shakespeare says that that result will have little bearing on Saturday’s match: "We’re professional enough to know that was a one-off game in terms of a result. We know that they’ve kept clean sheets since then and they’ve been resilient.
"We’ll be reminding our players about the Blackburn performance rather than the Ipswich game. Typical of Championship teams they’ve got some good quality players.
"I think they’ve become more workmanlike [under Mick McCarthy], and results and performances have become indifferent like with a lot of teams.
"But the message to our players is always to focus on the next game and make sure that we do everything in our power to get the three points."
Tuesday’s 3-0 home victory over Blackburn followed four games without a victory for the fifth-placed Foxes.