Boss Mick McCarthy believes the Easter games won’t make or break Town’s season but says a decent haul of points from the fixtures at home to Leeds today and at Millwall on Monday could leave the Blues in a much healthier position.
McCarthy said: "I don’t think it’s going to make or break us, but it could make it look a lot healthier or a lot worse.
"Unless we won two games and were on 52 points, then I think other teams would be very hard pushed to catch us then. But that’s utopia, isn’t it? I’ll dream about that.”
Despite the Blues remaining at the wrong end of the table with only eight games remaining, the Town boss says the mood at Portman Road is positive: "I don’t see any reason to get [stressed and nervy]. We’re not out of it, we’re still right in it when you look at it.
"Easter can be where you put yourself out of it and you can be looking back, thinking ‘Great, there’s no chance that we’re going down because others aren’t going to get the points’.
"Or you can be back in the bottom three. It’s just so bonkers. But worrying about it isn’t going to make it any better.
"They’ve trained well and I just keep saying to them that if they take that into their games, we’ll be all right.”
Town haven’t won back to back matches since the turn of the year, but McCarthy isn’t overly bothered about how the points are picked up as long as they come: "I’d settle for losing Saturday, winning Monday, losing Saturday, winning Saturday, losing Tuesday, winning Saturday, losing, winning.
"Whether we get them back to back, or four wins [at any time], I wouldn’t be bothered. I’d love them back to back, it’s just not easy to get them. They all come scrapping and it’s difficult.
"My view is that it’s about picking up enough points. We’d all love to have two wins and be sat looking down at people thinking ‘We can’t go down’.
"But I don’t think that’ll happen. I think it’ll go on for a bit longer, all this stress and pressure and worry. I’m not looking too stressed, am I?
"But to be successful you need to have back to back wins. Nottingham Forest have just had seven, Bolton had five and then got beaten. We’d like to have back to back wins, of course we would, but I can’t guarantee it.”