Striker Freddie Sears has echoed the view of manager Mick McCarthy that automatic promotion is probably now a step too far for Town this season.
Four wins from 13 league games since the turn of the year, just one point from a possible 12 so far in March. It doesn’t matter which statistic you quote, the one that matters most is that McCarthy’s men trail three title-chasing clubs by eight points with just nine fixtures left to fulfil and it would take a near-miracle for them to overturn such a significant gap in such a short space of time.
Saturday’s 4-1 reverse at Middlesbrough was a major setback and Sears, 25, admitted: "Until the top two places are definitely out of reach you have to keep going but realistically I think it might just be a little bit too much for us now.
"What is it, three teams who are all eight points in front of us? It’s a tough ask but we’ll keep battling, although I think the situation now is that we’re in a sort of mini-league with Brentford, Wolves and Nottingham Forest to see who can get into the play-offs.
"The defeat at Middlesbrough was really hard to take and there was a lot of disappointment after the game. To be fair, I don’t think we played that badly but we came away losing 4-1 so it was very disappointing.
"It was obviously a blow to our hopes of getting into the top two but after the results later in the day it kind of gave us a boost again to see that Brentford had lost at home to Cardiff. Also, Wolves didn’t win so not much changed with regard to our chances of making the play-offs.
"You always want to take care of your own results but at the same time you are looking to see what the others have done. Normally, as soon as your own game finishes you are straight away looking to see how your rivals — Brentford, Bournemouth, Derby, Norwich and the rest — got on.
"I should think every player at all the teams challenging for promotion is doing the same thing at the minute.”
Sears said it wasn’t all doom and gloom following the lunchtime, live-on-Sky clash at the Riverside, adding: "The positive was that we thought we played well and when we looked over all the stats on Monday there were a lot of good things to take from the game.
"The negative, obviously, was that we conceded four goals, which was a shame, but Middlesbrough are a good side and they have some good quality players. [Patrick] Bamford’s two goals were really good finishes and they also caught us with two set pieces that we’re disappointed about.
"But there are never any recriminations and no one gets dug out and told ‘It’s your fault’. It has never been a case of blaming people. There is a really good squad here and a good management team, and we’re all in it together, whether we win, lose or draw.
"The gaffer has come in on Monday and said his bit, so that’s it, we move on and we look forward to the game against Bolton now. There were no really harsh words from him but he made it clear he wasn’t happy about a few things.
"But that’s football — you are not going to be happy about everything every week. You just have to draw a line under it and move on. There are still nine games to go and I think that at the start of the season, if you were offered this position, you would have taken it.”