Defender Christophe Berra has explained why he believes Town’s home record in the current campaign has dropped well short of last season’s high standard.
Mick McCarthy’s men and Middlesbrough shared the Championship’s best home record last term — 15 wins, five draws and just three defeats — but in Town’s case it has been a very different story this time around.
As things stand Town have won six, drawn six and lost four of their home league fixtures this season, meaning that even if they win all remaining seven they will finish with five points fewer than last year’s final tally of 50.
Town have suffered their home defeats to promotion contenders Brighton, Middlesbrough, Derby and Hull, while draws with the likes of Birmingham, Bristol City, Huddersfield, Cardiff, Wolves and Preston have seen valuable points slip away.
Of course, the contrast in fortune at Portman Road has been tempered by the fact that Town currently boast one of the best away records in the Championship, but the fact remains that overall they are nine points worse off than at the same stage last season when they had banked 60 and were sitting third in the table with a goal difference of 20, compared to just one at present.
Berra, who has missed just two league games all season, said: "Because our home form was so good last season teams have come to us and played a different way by sitting back.
"We haven’t always managed to break them down and they’ve maybe nicked a goal on the counter-attack — generally it’s been a case of our opponents showing us a bit more respect.
The 31-year-old Scot knows only too well that home form is generally what defines supporters’ opinions and probably goes a long way towards explaining the current level of frustration among the same fans who were in a much more upbeat mood a year ago.
Berra added: "The fact is we’ve not won as many games at home as we did last season and expectations are high among the fans. People are expecting this and that but sometimes you have to be realistic and look at what we’ve done overall.
"If you look at Derby their expectations must be sky-high and they must be getting a lot of criticism from their fans.
"Even Middlesbrough are kind of slipping up. There’s no one team running away with it and there’s going to be plenty more upsets between now and the end of the season.
"With the money they spent, plus the quality of players they signed, both Derby and Middlesbrough were probably expected to go up straight away, whereas we want to do as well as possible and we are trying our best to get there.
"The truth is that in this league you never know from one week to the next what you are going to get.
"Before we went to Huddersfield and won last weekend we had lost three in a row and were disappointed to drop below the standards we had set in the past, so it was good to get back to winning ways.
"I was looking at the league table and our away record is in the top three, which is really good, but it’s obviously true that at home we need to pick up more wins instead of draws.”