Christophe Berra knows Town will not be the only Championship team going into their final fixture thinking about what might have been.
Several other sides that also missed out on the play-offs have no alternative but to turn their focus on next season and trying to succeed where they narrowly failed in the current campaign.
Asked if the players had simply run out of legs on the final lap, the ex-Wolves defender said: "I don’t know but to be honest our last couple of away games — at Watford and Burnley — have been difficult and that would have been the case even if they had been at the start of the season.
"We just couldn’t manage to get the results we needed. If we had done we could be going into the last game against Sheffield Wednesday with a chance of making the play-offs — but now it’s really in Reading’s hands.
"We had ambitions to be there but you have to remember the gaffer has done a great job on a small budget. Everyone he brought in was on a free transfer and I think the wage bill has dropped as well.
"We’ve probably punched above our weight a little bit but that’s down to having good characters in the changing room and a good coaching staff.”
Are there any particular lessons to be learned? Berra added: "In hindsight you can look back over some games and think we should have got points here and there. But that’s the Championship for you and you don’t have a divine right to go into every game and get the three points.
"There’s always another team who think they are just as good as you or better. There were games in which we made mistakes, where we could have done better or maybe a bit of Lady Luck deserted us.
"But at the start of the season, with the past seasons Ipswich have had, if we’d said that with two games to go we would still have a chance of the play-offs I think people would have taken it. As professionals, however, we always want a bit more and we’re disappointed not to be in that top six.”