Town's third round FA Cup tie at Southampton has been set for Sunday 4th January with a 3pm kick-off.
As reported last night, the Saints are in action at home to Arsenal on the Thursday so won't have been keen to play the match on the Saturday. The tie may still move if it is chosen for live TV coverage.
Manager Mick McCarthy said at last night's AGM that he is pleased to be facing Premier League opposition.
"I think it’s a great draw for us, but I would have loved it to have been at home.
"Believe me, I didn’t want Accrington Stanley. Who? Exactly!" he joked. "I didn’t want one of those teams, I’d prefer to test ourselves [against a Premier League side like Southampton].”
Asked whether he would field his strongest team, he added: "We haven’t got a game in the following week and I would have thought that the lads would want to play.
"I’ll see what we’ve got. We’ve got a squad of 21 operating at the minute and we’ll see who’s fit, who’s ready and we’ll go and take them on.”
The teams last met at the same stage of the competition back in Town's 1999/00 promotion season when the Saints won 1-0 at Portman Road with Dean Richards netting the goal.
More recently, they faced one another in the fourth round in 2009/10 when Wayne Thomas and Michail Antonio netted for the Saints and Pablo Couñago scored in the final minute for the Blues.
Previously, the Blues were at the Dell for a third round tie in 1990/91 when the home side ran out 3-2 victors.
Blues striker David McGoldrick and keeper Bartosz Bialkowski will be facing their old club, while Tyrone Mings was with their academy as a schoolboy and keeper-coach Malcolm Webster is another former St Mary's employee.