Boss Mick McCarthy says neither he nor his players are giving up on the Blues reaching the play-offs. Town, who face relegated Blackpool at Portman Road today, dropped to eighth, three points off the top six, following Monday’s 2-1 defeat at Huddersfield.
"I guess the ones that get into the position that we’ve got ourselves in when we’ve made it difficult for ourselves are the ones that will quite clearly blow it if they don’t think they’ve got any chance,” he said.
"I’m out there every day encouraging us that we can still do it and with the games that we’ve got, there’s no reason why we can’t.
"Until it gets to May 2nd and we’re out of it, I won’t be giving up and neither will the players.”
He says he’s not sure how many points it will take to get into the top six, although he dismisses the suggestion that a total as high as 80 might be required.
"I don’t know about that,” he added. "You look at some of the fixtures, Wolves are playing Birmingham tomorrow and then they’re playing Middlesbrough away and then they’ve got us at home.
"That’s going to throw some results up. It’s going to take a lot more than the 68 or 72 it takes in a normal season, though.”
He says the teams who eventually do go up will deserve to do so after a very hard-fought and tight campaign.
"I’ll tell you how tough it is, Derby are fifth,” he continued. "They looked like they were going to rip it up and run away with it at one stage and they’ve just had a really tough run and they’ve plummeted.
"As crazy as this may seem, they could be the ones that miss out. It’s just relentless and it’s very, very tough and competitive.
"We’re talking about winning these two home games. Let’s assume we do get the points, we’ll be on 74 and no closer to being in the play-offs than we are now because there are games to play.
"Whoever does achieve it, first, second and going up out of the play-offs, will deserve it this year, they’ll have earned it.”
While the Rams were amongst the sides to spend big money on recruiting loan players in January, McCarthy feels they have suffered from losing regulars such as striker Chris Martin to injury.
"I understand that [spending money] doesn’t guarantee [success] because players come in and it’s not always the case that they have a great effect, although Tom Ince has gone in there and scored a few goals,” he said.
"But they’re missing their tried and tested ones in Martin, who has been their focal point.
"I think all of us have had periods when we’ve not done as well as we should have done, but I think everybody thought that Derby would be in the top two. Certainly earlier in the season it looked like that.”