Boss Mick McCarthy is hoping Town have an even better home record during 2015/16, despite last season’s play-off finish having been built on their strength when playing at Portman Road. A crowd of around 21,000 is expected for today's first home game of the campaign against Sheffield Wednesday.
The Blues won 15, drew five and lost only three of their 23 home games in the Championship last season, scoring 40 goals and conceding 18, but McCarthy wants to see an improvement, challenging his team to go unbeaten at home all season.
"I’m hoping for better,” McCarthy declared. "I hope we don’t get beaten at home, that would be terrific - get more points than we did last season.
"I’ve often said that we’re geographically challenged, travelling to games all the time. But they all have to come here and I remember being at Sunderland and certainly that was a schlep down here, and from Wolverhampton.
"There are no easy journeys, you get stuck on those motorways on Friday afternoons. So, while we have to do our bit of travelling, they all have to come here and it worked well for us last season.”
McCarthy believes he has a much better squad than he did a year ago with greater strength in depth: "I looked at the team photograph last year and then I looked at the team which played at Crawley last year in the Capital One Cup and the current squad is night and day compared to that.
"The young versus old match [on Friday] morning, the young team, who very often got a slapping by the older more experienced ones last year, were suddenly Josh Emmanuel, Myles Kenlock, Josh Yorwerth, Tommy Smith, Ryan Fraser, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Adam McDonnell, Jonny Parr and Freddie Sears, and they won comfortably.
"It’s just different because they’ve all got a bit older, the players that have come up - both Joshes, Myles, they’re just better players, better able to do it.
"So the squad’s better and I’d hope for better things. I’d be hoping that we’re better than we were last year. That’s putting pressure on myself!”