Boss Mick McCarthy says he'd "love to be competitive in the league playing wonderful, free-flowing football" but believes that may take more than the sort of money he has had to spend at Town.
Despite the Blues having maintained a play-off challenge for a second season, Town’s direct style of football has been condemned by some supporters.
Quizzed on the criticism, McCarthy said: "I’d like to keep winning games, me. I’d like to finish in the play-offs. I can see teams who play some lovely football and we’ve played against them and beaten them.
"I want to be competitive in this league. I’d love to be competitive in the league playing wonderful, free-flowing football. Maybe that takes [spending] more than £500,000 over four years. Does it? It does.
"I can see a team who have spent £25 million and we’re six points behind them, I think it’s six.
"I admire my lads and my team and respect them for what they do and how they do it.
"And we constantly try to improve on how we play and if we can be a bit more subtle, great. But not at the expense of getting beat.”
Reflecting on this year’s home form, which has been poorer than last year’s, the joint-best in the division and the platform on which the sixth-place finish was built, he added: "It was great last season, it was a really hostile place to come and play. If you could call Portman Road a hostile place, it was because of the way we played, the results that we had, the crowds, the support that we got.
"But they all come on the back of us playing well and winning games, and we haven’t done enough of that this season.”
With season ticket renewals set to go out next week, the Town boss admits home fans haven’t had the same value for money that they did last season, although he points out that the Blues have done better than in the campaigns prior to that.
"Not as much as last season, no,” he said. "More than the season before? Yes. More than the season before that. Yes. More than the season before that. Yes. More than the season before that. Yes. Season before that. Yes.
"If I’m saying we haven’t had the same entertainment value I’m sort of having a dig at my team, and I’m not in that sort of mood to be having a dig at my own team.
"I don’t like being hard on myself and my team because plenty of others do it far more often and far better than I can.
"I think we have tried to entertain, we’ve not done it overall, but we’ve still got a chance of getting in the play-offs.
"And I wonder what entertaining is, actually. I think entertaining is winning games, if you’re a supporter, and we haven’t won enough here.”
Looking back over his four campaigns since taking over at Portman Road in November 2012, he added: "All the four seasons I’ve been here have been different. They’ve all had a modicum of success, up until this one which won’t be as successful as last season unless we finish sixth or above. But they’re all different, that’s just the way it is.
"I would think that Derby and Burnley and Middlesbrough, they’ve all been fairly different. I can’t guarantee the same sort of effect that we had last season.
"And we have had mini-periods in the season when it’s been up and down. And generally it’s been down when we’ve lost players and we’ve not had the full squad to pick from, which does make it difficult. But as has been pointed out, Nottingham Forest have had similar.”
Forest were booed off following their 2-1 home loss to Bristol City last week, their third successive defeat, having been on a 13-game unbeaten run in the Championship prior to that.
But McCarthy says fans would react similarly anywhere: "Is it any different from here, in terms of having to win games? Or anywhere else, Manchester City, where I played, or Millwall, where I played and managed, or Sunderland or Wolves.
"There’s no difference. Fans want to see their team play well. They want to see them win first and foremost, then they love to see them playing well and winning.
"And I go back to entertainment. I know a few teams which really entertain and they’re not getting anything at all, so I don’t get that.
"Is it a good time to play Forest? I’m sure Huddersfield thought it was a good time to play us last week.
"There’s a different side to every single story. Our side, we came back we feel a lot better than we did last week.
"We’ve not had great home form, although apart from the Hull game we’d had good results prior to that.
"Forest, I don’t know how they’re feeling, I’ve no idea. They’ll be coming to us saying things like ‘Not been great at home this season, it’s not been a fortress, if we can keep them quiet, if we can nick a goal early on’. All that will be said in the Forest dressing room.
"All we can do is be us. I said that to the lads today, just be us, just play like we play and play well at how we play and if we do it we’re capable of beating anybody here.”
Regarding fans and renewals, he hopes there will be a similar uptake to last year with the club currently having just over 14,000 season ticket holders.
"The supporters have been brilliant this season,” he said. "I know we had a great take-up of season tickets last year. I think that was very positive, that was on the back of how well we played and that we looked like being in the play-offs.
"All I can do is make it worthwhile for them to do it and I’ll continue to do that, as will the players. And I hope they do take them up because I think our supporters are terrific.”