Winger Paul Anderson agrees Town face a tough festive and early New Year period but feels that regardless of results it will do little to determine where they are likely to finish the season.
Mick McCarthy’s men, beaten just once in a run of 17 league games since losing at home to Norwich in August, face three top five sides in their next four fixtures, starting with a visit from Middlesbrough on Saturday.
Then it’s Brentford away on Boxing Day, Charlton at home on December 30th and, following an FA Cup third round visit to Southampton on January 4th, bookies’ pre-season favourites Derby are Portman Road-bound six days later in a live-on-Sky clash that kicks off at 12.15pm.
Anderson said: "It’s a tough schedule but those games might suit us. Middlesbrough are very similar to us and will probably line up in a very similar formation and play a very similar way. It will be a toss of a coin and whoever blinks first — that’s how the game could go.
"We have full confidence in ourselves and we showed that earlier in the season with our second-half performance against Derby, who are clearly one of the better teams in the league.
"We outperformed them by a long way and we are not scared of anyone, so hopefully we will pick up as many points as possible to keep us in the top six.
"We have opened up a little bit of a gap from seventh so if any negativity comes into it and we lose at any point we will be looking to bounce straight back. We obviously don’t want to but we know we are in a position where we can afford to lose the odd game.”
Anderson and his Town team-mates are determined to extend their impressive run of form to claim one of the two automatic promotion places and book their place in the Premier League next season, which would see the club return to English football’s top flight for the first time since their relegation in 2002.
He added: "We probably wouldn’t have said it at the start of the season but from where we are now, in a great position, we are definitely aiming for the top two. Because of how well we have done until now, we can probably lose our next four games and still be in the play-off places.
"What I’m saying is that our next four games are not going to define where we will end up but the better it will be for us to take points off the teams who are around us in the table. If we win all four we’ll be jumping off our seats and we’ll probably be top of the table with a nice little gap.
"They are all tough games and if we pick up a couple of wins and two losses we are pretty much going to be where we are now. It’s where we are come May that matters.
"We might have some more games in the play-offs and if that’s the case we’ll take it as that was our original aim. If we’re higher than that there will be a very nice celebration.”