Town complete their pre-season fixtures with a home game against Dutch side FC Utrecht at Portman Road this afternoon (KO 3pm).
Blues boss Mick McCarthy is likely to play a side close to the team which will line-up against Brentford at Griffin Park on the opening day of the season next Saturday.
McCarthy may want to start with skipper Luke Chambers at the centre of the defence alongside Tommy Smith with Christophe Berra suspended for the first match of 2015/16 for his play-off red card at the end of last season.
New signing Jonas Knudsen is set to make his first appearance in a Blues shirt at left-back with Jonny Parr perhaps starting on the right of the defence.
Trialist Giles Coke is again set to be involved and may well start in the centre of midfield, although Cole Skuse was involved in Thursday’s training session on the main Portman Road pitch and could start having missed the defeat at Colchester on Tuesday. Guinean international trialist Larsen Touré could also be involved at some stage.
Saturday’s game is Town’s sixth and final friendly and the Town manager says he’ll be delighted to get the season proper under way next week: "I will be absolutely thrilled when it starts that’s when my real motivation starts, when the competitive edge comes.
"All the preliminaries before the season, pre-season stuff, I’ve heard other managers say they enjoy it because there’s no pressure on the games.
"But I prefer there to be pressure on the games because I can’t get myself in real work mode, fight mode for the friendlies. The real stuff comes round next Saturday and I’m looking forward to it.”
He says he hasn’t studied Utrecht, who last season finished 11th in the Eredivisie, the Dutch top flight, that closely.
"Not really, I haven’t,” he admitted. "They’re an Eredivisie team and I’ve no doubt they’ll have some good technical players.
"I think Derby beat them [3-2 away] in a pre-season friendly, but I haven’t seen too much of them. It’s about how we play anyway.”
McCarthy says playing against a side from Holland may prove a useful exercise ahead of the game against the Bees next week: "Strangely enough Brentford have got a Dutch manager [Marinus Dijkhuizen] and we don’t know how they’re going to play. That might have a bearing on it, the way they play. I don’t know.
"There are a lot of teams that play a bit more like Dutch sides now, where they all fan out and get it out the back and pass it out the back. Maybe that’s what we’ll face first day of the season.”
Utrecht, whose squad trained at Playford Road yesterday, currently have a young squad with not many big names. Amongst their most promising players are French forward Sébastien Haller, a youth product from AJ Auxerre, who is tipped for a Premier League future.
Zojuist is #fcutrecht gearriveerd bij het trainingscomplex van @Official_ITFC. Wat een prachtige velden! #ipsutr pic.twitter.com/nEkteiv5vx– FC Utrecht (@fcutrecht) July 31, 2015
Midfielder or striker Nacer Barazite was a youth player with Arsenal and had a spell on loan at Derby, while Swedish winger Kristoffer Peterson was with Liverpool’s Academy and spent time on loan at Tranmere.
Midfielders Willem Janssen, ex-FC Twente, and the homegrown Yassin Ayoub are also highly rated, while keeper Robbin Ruiter is attracting interest from a lot of other clubs.
Admission to this afternoon’s game cost £10 for adults, £8 for seniors, students and under-20s and £3 for under-16s.
The upper tiers of the Sir Bobby Robson and Sir Alf Ramsey Stands and the lower tier of the Cobbold Stand will not be open for the match.
Meanwhile, Blues defender Matt Clarke is again set to feature for Portsmouth in their friendly at Gillingham this afternoon. The 18-year-old's loan is likely to be confirmed now that the Blues have added Knudsen to their squad.
Elsewhere, Town's U18s lost 4-1 to Tottenham and drew 1-1 with Norwegian side Rosenborg yesterday at the pre-season tournament the North Londoners are hosting this weekend. On Thursday the Blues youngsters lost 5-0 to Manchester United.