Town travel to Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday still looking for their first away win of the season. Manager Mick McCarthy, who expects to have a fully fit squad, could look to make one or two changes with the trip to Hillsborough the Blues' third game in eight days, having fielded the same team in the last three matches.
Despite picking up only two points on the road so far this season, McCarthy believes his side have played better than their results suggest.
Wednesday currently sit fourth from bottom of the Championship on five points having failed to win either home or away so far this season and the Town boss isn’t sure whether that will work for or against his side on Saturday.
"They’ve not had a win yet, does that bode well or not for us?” he said. "We haven’t had an away win, so we’re due one of those.
"We’ve played as well as anybody. I reckon if anybody could say they’ve played as well as we have away from home all season and not had the results that we’ve deserved, they’d be doing OK.”
Town, the joint-fourth leading goalscorers in the Championship with 17, have let in 14 at the other end with McCarthy unhappy with the manner in which four were conceded during the 4-4 draw at Derby on Tuesday.
Prior to that, he feels the Blues had been a touch unfortunate with some of the goals they have given away on their travels: "The Reading goal, certainly a deflection, the second one. The first one we should have dealt with that cross, definitely.
"Birmingham, deflection, can’t do anything about it. Wigan, we should have done better with the marking [on the first one] and the second one was a mistake by Gerks. QPR, we should have done better.
"But I’m delighted with the way we’re playing and I’m delighted with the lads and really immensely proud of them, I think they’re fantastic.
"We’ve got 18 bods, who are giving absolutely everything. If we could get everything right, if I could get the lowest goals against and highest goals for, brilliant.”
Despite the disappointment of losing the three-goal lead at Pride Park, the Town boss admits that he would have been happy with a draw at the start of the game: "I still say the same, take the point. What’s the point of saying anything else? I can let everyone else be negative about it. I don’t subscribe to that.
"We’ve had a look at it, we can see the reasons why, but you’ve got to give Derby a bit of credit as well, Derby aren’t a bad team, by the way.
"Derby were only two points behind us before the game and they’ve got some bloody good players. And that squad’s been built over five years. I would have loved the three points, but we’ll get them back somewhere else, that’s my view.”
He says his squad have had a quiet week since that game: "We haven’t trained, we were off on Wednesday and we’ve just been out today [Thursday], the ones who didn’t play and haven’t been playing have trained with TC.
"And the ones who have played all the games have just had recovery work to get them ready to go again on Saturday.”
McCarthy says he has a lot of time for his Wednesday opposite number Dave Jones: "He’s a very experienced manager, a good manager.
"He’s had a lot of success through his career and that’s all relative. I often think that about myself, others have had far, far more, but you look at your own career and think you’ve done well.
"Dave has, he’s a good man, you don’t have too many bosom buddies or pals, but he’s a footballing mate, Dave, a good guy.”
One of the changes McCarthy may be weighing up is whether to switch his goalkeepers. Scott Loach, dropped after a mistake in the Leeds game in August, could come back after a couple of Dean Gerken errors in recent matches.
The back four is likely to be the same with Tommy Smith and Christophe Berra in the centre and Luke Chambers on the right and Aaron Cresswell on the left.
In midfield, the Town boss could hand a recall to skipper Carlos Edwards on the right in place of Paul Anderson, but is likely to stick with Ryan Tunnicliffe on the left and Luke Hyam and Cole Skuse in the centre. Up front, Daryl Murphy will again partner Championship Player of the Month David McGoldrick.
Speaking on Thursday, McCarthy said Chambers and Hyam had both suffered minor knocks at Derby but expected them to fine for the trip to Hillsborough.
The Owls will be without defender Anthony Gardner, who recently underwent Achilles’ surgery, while striker Gary Madine has been jailed for 18 months after being found guilty of two assaults.
Like his friend McCarthy, Wednesday boss Jones believes his side’s performances have deserved better results.
He says he has faith in his players: "You hold your nerve, stay strong, not losing sight of what you are trying to do. You take all the positives that people are doing within the club and try to eradicate the mistakes.
"I believe in the players here. They’re a strong bunch, they’ve done it before, they’ll do it again. The players we have here are probably a bit better than the ones we had last year.”
Wednesday have had the edge on the Blues historically, winning 17 times (16 in the league), losing on 15 (14) occasions with eight (seven) matches ending in draws.
The Blues were last at Hillsborough on the penultimate weekend of last season when they all but secured their Championship status for another year via a 1-1 draw.
Jay Tabb scored his first goal for four and a half years when his knee diverted home a Carlos Edwards long throw in the first half of a scrappy game, but the Owls equalised after the break through Leroy Lita.
In October, in caretaker-manager Chris Hutchings’s only game as boss, Wednesday left Portman Road having run out comfortable 3-0 winners.
The Owls, who were previously without a win in 10 games, went in front in the first minute through Ross Barkley, the then-on-loan Everton man added the second just prior to the hour mark, before Michail Antonio netted the third late on.
Both Town’s current front two have had loan spells with the Owls. McGoldrick spent a month there during the early part of 2011/12, scoring once in three starts and one sub appearance.
Murphy was at Hillsborough for a month in 2005 while a Sunderland player, making four appearances but failing to find the net.
Wednesday winger Jermaine Johnson spent time on trial with the Blues back in January 2001 but was unable to win a contract.
Young Canadian-born striker Caolan Lavery, a Northern Ireland U21 international, joined the Owls in the summer of 2012 having turned down a professional contract with the Blues during the previous season after coming through the Town academy. The 20-year-old made his league debut for Wednesday as a sub earlier in this campaign.
Tickets will be available on the gate at Hillsborough with prices increasing by £1 on their pre-match levels.
Saturday’s referee is Andy Haines from Tyne and Wear, who has shown 16 yellow cards and one red in six games so far this season. Haines’s last Town game was the 1-0 defeat at Hull in November 2010 when he booked one player from each side.
Squad from: Gerken, Loach, Chambers, Hewitt, Veseli, Cresswell, Mings, Smith, Berra, Skuse, Hyam, Wordsworth, Tunnicliffe, Edwards, Anderson, Tabb, Murphy, McGoldrick, Nouble, Marriott, Lee.