Town boss Mick McCarthy says he doesn’t expect to manage in the Premier League again - unless he wins promotion with the Blues.
McCarthy was in charge of Sunderland and Wolves in the top flight but says he’s received no interest from clubs at that level since his Molineux sacking in February 2012: "I don’t see them clamouring for my services and never did.
"I was disappointed I didn’t get the opportunity to have my third season to keep Wolves up and had I done I would have been viewed very differently.
"As opposed to have being sacked in February I would still have been in a job and still in the Premier League if I’d have kept them up.
"We don’t know whether I would have done. I can say I would have, but that’s all hypothetical.
"Of course I was disappointed and then the job I got offered was one at the bottom of the Championship.”
He added: "I get described as a ‘top Championship manager’ as my career has been spent either going from the top six in the Championship, mainly, to the Premier League or from 39th in the world to 13th as an international manager.
"I’d say that’s pretty good. I’d say there’d be a lot of managers who would be delighted with my record.
"While I’d like it to be better, I’m not content with it, I want to get in the Premier League again. To get there I do think I’ll have to do it again by getting a team promoted, hopefully it’s Ipswich.
"And that’s how I feel. I don’t feel they’re going to come clamouring for my services unless I make an anagram of my name and make it a foreign one.”
Town are currently second in the table despite other clubs having paid significant transfer fees and wages which McCarthy says are sometimes well beyond the Blues’ means.
"I’ve been talking to managers and agents this week and seen some of the wages that players are earning at other clubs,” he said.
"We’re OK in terms of what we pay to the players, but some of them are seriously nuts as to what they’re paying. And we can’t get anywhere near them.
"It doesn’t matter what we’re paying, we’re doing it how we do it. If they’re on free transfers, Bosmans, trialists walking in the door, that’s how it’s been done so far.”