Jay Tabb has warned that the Championship clubs currently occupying the automatic promotion and play-off places could soon pull clear of the rest.
The midfielder has stressed the need to stay on the tail of former club Reading, who occupy sixth spot, one place and four points better off than Town.
Tabb said: "The top six are in danger of pulling away. We are four points short of Reading in sixth so we’ve got to make sure we hang on to them.
"I think Leicester are pretty much certainties to go on and win the league, or at least finish in the top two, but our aim was always to improve on last year.
"Since the manager came in last November he has turned the club around hugely. If you’d said to any Ipswich fan that come February or March time we’d be on the verge of the play-offs I think they’d have taken that.
"Now we’ve got to make sure that in our remaining games we really put it in and work hard. I believe that at the end of the season you finish where you deserve to.”
Town have taken seven points from their last three league games and will aim to make it 10 from a possible 12 when they travel to take on struggling Barnsley at Oakwell tomorrow.
Tabb added: "Fans probably look at this game and think we should be beating Barnsley but players and management look at it differently. When we played them at Portman Road they played really well in the second half. We were 1-0 up and then they came back into it to draw.
"They were a good side on the night but obviously they are down at the wrong end of the table and they need the points just as much as we do. It will be a tough game.
"If we go up there thinking that just because we have had a few good results recently we are owed something we will be wrong. We have to make sure we work harder than they do and the result will come.”