Town go into Saturday’s game away against Sheffield Wednesday knowing that only a win will be good enough to reignite their play-off hopes. The eighth-placed Blues are eight points behind the Owls in sixth with a significantly inferior goal difference and with only five games remaining.
"We’ve got to play Sheffield Wednesday who are the one team that we’ve got any chance of catching,” manager Mick McCarthy said.
"And we’ve got a chance of catching them because we’re playing them. If we beat them then we might just think we’re in touching distance again. Let’s concentrate on doing that. Never say never and who knows what will happen.”
McCarthy says it’s not yet time to start looking to next season or at blooding youngsters, although 16-year-old Andre Dozzell has again been included in the party which will travel to South Yorkshire on Friday afternoon.
Earlier in the week, Liverpool were reported to have started talks with Town regarding the England U17 international, but McCarthy has said he has received no contact from the Merseysiders.
"If we go there and win then suddenly we might all be thinking, ‘Hold on a minute, we’ve now still got a chance'. I’ve got to give myself and everybody else that chance before [doing that].
"Who knows, the kids might play and help us, fresh faces, fresh legs, but I don’t want to actively weaken the team and then go to Sheffield Wednesday and then think what might have been. Let’s see what we can get out of this game first.”
Asked how well his team is dealing with the end of season pressure, he admitted: "We’re not coping with it very well judging by results, are we? If that’s the yardstick, how we judge it, it’s not been very good.”
The Blues have won just once in seven games but he says that contrary to some perceptions, little has changed in their approach.
"What’s sort of misguided here is that we’re actually doing nothing different than when we got in the play-offs last year and when we played well - all right, we ultimately lost, but we played well in those games - to Norwich,” he said.
"We're doing nothing different, they’re playing exactly the same, they’re playing as if their lives depended on it. If that’s what they were doing then, they’re doing it now. It’s just not happening for us at the moment.”
Regarding Wednesday, he says he was impressed with them when they visited Portman Road for Town’s opening home Championship home game of the campaign in August.
"I thought they were a good team when we played them here,” he continued. "They scored and then we got a goal back straight away, thankfully, and we went on to win 2-1.
"I thought they were an excellent team. They’ve continued to invest, they’ve taken Aiden McGeady from Everton, Gary Hooper on loan from Norwich.
"They signed Lucas Joao, who I thought was a really good player when he played against us here at the start of the season.
"They’ve invested pretty heavily in that and maybe that’s why they’ve got the points they’ve got. We’ve still got a chance to beat them on Saturday, so we’ll give it our best shot.”
McCarthy may well decide to give last week’s changed back four another chance which would see skipper Luke Chambers continue alongside Christophe Berra at the centre of the defence, Jonas Knudsen at left-back and Kevin Foley at right-back. Player of the Year Bartosz Bialkowski will be in goal.
In midfield, McCarthy will be forced into at least once change with Luke Hyam suspended for one game for last week’s red card.
The Blues boss could stick with the 4-4-2 system utilised last week but with Jonathan Douglas replacing Hyam alongside Cole Skuse in the centre.
McCarthy could opt to move Freddie Sears back to the right side with Liam Feeney or Ben Pringle on the left.
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"With Daryl Murphy still out with his calf injury and Luke Varney a doubt with a hamstring problem, Brett Pitman could be partnered by David McGoldrick, with the Town boss having confirmed that the Republic of Ireland international is now ready to make his first start since the 0-0 home draw with Cardiff on the final day of October.
Sheffield Wednesday, who fell to a surprise 4-1 defeat at Bristol City last week having won their previous four games, are expected to have keeper Keiren Westwood (illness) and striker Gary Hooper (foot) back in their squad.
Defender Glenn Loovens is over a thigh problem, while midfielder Sam Hutchinson (glandular fever) will be assessed prior to the match. Another midfield player, Filipe Melo, is expected back in training next week.
Historically, the record is very evenly balanced, Town having won 18 games (17 in the league), Wednesday 17 (16) and with 11 (10) matches having ended in draws.
Last time the teams met, at Portman Road in the opening home league game of the season, Tommy Smith nodded the winner from close range eight minutes after the break as the Blues came from behind to beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1.
Ross Wallace had put the Owls in front in the 19th minute but Freddie Sears equalised two minutes later.
Last time at at Hillsborough, in September 2014, returning loanee Jonny Williams struck four minutes after coming off the bench to claim a 1-1 draw.
The Crystal Palace man, who was making his second Town debut, half-volleyed home in the 63rd minute, Atdhe Nuhiu having put the Owls ahead in the fifth minute.
Blues midfielder Giles Coke, who is out for the season having undergone knee surgery, spent five years with Wednesday having signed from Motherwell in July 2010, making 77 starts and 24 sub appearances and scoring seven goals. He joined Town last summer having been released by the Owls.
Three of the Blues’ strikers have had loan spells with the Owls. David McGoldrick spent a month there during the early part of 2011/12, scoring once in three starts and one sub appearance, while Daryl Murphy was at Hillsborough for a month in 2005 while a Sunderland player, making four appearances but failing to find the net.
Luke Varney had a spell on loan with Wednesday when a Derby player at the end of the 2008/09 season and then spent all but a month of the following campaign at Hillsborough. In total he scored 11 goals in 35 starts and 14 sub appearances.
Former Town keeper Lewis Price, 31, joined Wednesday last summer following his release by Crystal Palace and was on the bench for their U21s at Portman Road on Monday.
After joining the Town as an academy scholar from Southampton, Price went on to make 74 starts and one sub appearance for the Blues between 2004 and 2007.
Canadian-born striker Caolan Lavery, a Northern Ireland U21 international, joined the Owls in the summer of 2012 having turned down a professional contract with the Blues during the previous season after coming through the Town Academy.
The 23-year-old skippered Wednesday’s U21s in Monday’s 1-0 defeat to the Blues at Portman Road.
Today [Friday] marks the 27th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster and Town manager McCarthy believes it’s important that it continues to be remembered.
"I was playing at Celtic that day and I remember playing in a game for the disaster fund afterwards. They were just unbelievable scenes.
"I go back to being a kid and there was a disaster at Ibrox. You’re detached from it when you’re not there.
"I played on the Saturday when there was the Bradford fire. I came off, we’d got promoted at Manchester City that year, and then the Hillsborough disaster.
"They all just leave you in shock because families let kids go off to games, mums, dads, all families go out to watch a game and it should be a really safe environment and to think that some of them never come back is just beyond belief.”
He added: "I think the people of Liverpool have made sure [that the 96 fans who died are not forgotten] and any miscarriage of justice they’ve pursued, and rightfully so because, as I said, they’re dads, mums, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, cousins, they’re family and that’s what matters most to all of us.”
Saturday’s referee is Premier League official Robert Madley from West Yorkshire, who has shown 79 yellow cards and four red in 28 games so far this season.
Madley’s most recent Town game was the 1-1 draw at AFC Bournemouth in April last year in which he booked Blues skipper Luke Chambers and one home player.
His only other Blues match was the 1-0 home victory over Blackpool in February 2013 in which he yellow-carded just Guirane N’Daw.
Squad from: Bialkowski, Gerken, Chambers (c), Knudsen, Foley, Berra, Smith, Digby, Douglas, Skuse, Tabb, Bru, Dozzell, Pringle, Feeney, Maitland-Niles, Touré, Sears, Pitman, Varney, McGoldrick.