Town boss Mick McCarthy admits that the Blues were “awful” against Rotherham last time out but says that performance shouldn’t be viewed as typical of the season as a whole or his time at Portman Road.
McCarthy’s pragmatic approach has been criticised since the 1-0 home defeat to the relegation-battling Millers, but he says that it was what led to the year-on-year progress achieved since he took over in November 2012.
"I’m not going to lose that now because I’m 57 now and I’ve probably had that pragmatic edge to me all my life," he said.
"My pragmatic side is probably why we’re in eighth position, four points off the play-offs.
"We’re still pushing for the play-offs as opposed to being in League One, where we may well have been, because of my pragmatic nature.
"We stayed up with 50-odd points in the first year because of my pragmatic nature. We did 14th the next, then ninth, then sixth and now we’re in eighth because of the way I do it and how I do it.
"Unfortunately, if we don’t win it’s not pretty, sometimes it’s not nice. Well, hey ho.”
The Town boss says it would be difficult to take a completely different approach: "I think it’s very hard to change the way you are, completely flip and do something mad and different, ‘I know, we’ll have both centre-halves outside the 18-yard box and we’ll have the keeper rolling it to them’.
"And I know what’ll happen, we’ll roll it back to Bart and somebody will close him down and everybody will go ‘Oh shit! Get it up the pitch!’. That’s what’ll happen. So, that isn’t going to happen, that’s not going to change.
"But I’m not going to sit here and take it that one triple P, one piss poor performance, is representative of my season or my time here or my players’ time this season. I’m not having it. Not a chance.
"So, yes, we were awful against Rotherham, they were good, and good luck to them, but I’m not taking that in any shape or form off anybody.”
Meanwhile, McCarthy continues to be linked with the vacant Aston Villa manager's job.
According to the Daily Mail, the soon-to-be-relegated Premier League club see McCarthy as an option to become their new boss, viewing the 57-year-old as a safe pair of hands and believing he would be interested in taking the role next season.
Speaking on Thursday, McCarthy admitted he was flattered to be linked with the position which Remi Garde left by mutual consent earlier in the week.
The Town manager remains third favourite with most bookies behind David Moyes and Nigel Pearson, although having slipped back from 3-1, the shortest price quoted on Thursday, to around 7-1 or 8-1 depending on bookmaker.