Boss Mick McCarthy says second in the table is ”a nice place to be” and now that Town have climbed into the automatic promotion places, wants to stay there.
Saturday’s 4-1 home victory over Leeds saw the Blues - who have 37 points - stay in second a point behind leaders Derby (38) and one ahead of third-placed Bournemouth (36).
The Blues are also now five points ahead of Watford in sixth (32) but McCarthy says he’s not paying much attention to the increasing size of that gap, despite it meaning that Town wouldn't slip too far should they suffer a couple of poor results.
"We want to stay in second now, so why would we be looking at sixth?” he said.
"When we’re in second, we want to stay there. Whether we can or not, whether we’re good enough, whether we’ll be strong enough going forward, who knows?
"But we’ve played a lot of the teams and we’re there now anyway. It’s a nice place to be.”
Saturday was the 10th anniversary of two-goal frontman Daryl Murphy initially joining the Blues on trial while with hometown club Waterford United.
The Irishman - who is currently the Championship’s top scorer on 13 - had a couple of trial spells with the Blues as well as spending time at Sunderland and eventually opted to join the Premier League-bound Black Cats, who were then managed by his current Ipswich boss.
"I remember that,” McCarthy recalled when reminded that he landed Murphy ahead of the Blues and reflected on their time together at the Stadium of Light.
"He probably scored a goal which kept me in employment at Sunderland because he scored the equaliser against Tottenham.
"I think the hierarchy there were so pissed off because I think they were ready to get shot of me if we’d lost to Tottenham and good old Murph scored and kept me in decent employment for another two or three weeks, which was lovely.
"I’ve never seen so many miserable faces in a boardroom in my life when he got the equaliser.”
Meanwhile, Leeds manager Neil Redfearn believes Town are genuine promotion contenders.
"Definitely," he said. "I think they’re well-organised, they’re a physical side. They’re direct but I don’t think they’re a long-ball side by any means. I think they put balls in good areas, they’ve got a way of playing and they’re good at it.
"We talked this week about stopping crosses, about stopping balls coming into the box and we didn’t do it.
"We didn’t stop the ball coming in for the first goal, the equaliser. It was too easy to get the ball in the box from the right and he’s got a free header.
"Obviously the goals after that, we should have done far better with them. Then the second half is always going to be difficult."