Town boss Mick McCarthy believes any club would suffer from having four of their best and most creative players unavailable for long periods of the season, as the Blues have during 2015/16.
Teddy Bishop made his first senior start of the campaign during Saturday’s 3-2 victory over the MK Dons having suffered with a series of injuries, while David McGoldrick only recently returned to action after the torn hamstring he suffered in December. The Republic of Ireland international's goal during Saturday's game was his first since August.
Ryan Fraser - who was back at Portman Road to join the end of season lap of appreciation following the MK Dons match - has been with his parent club AFC Bournemouth recovering from a hamstring problem since February, the loanee's second stint on the sidelines.
Latterly, Daryl Murphy has been out with a calf problem, having never hit the same heights this season as he did during his remarkable 2014/15 campaign when he top scored in the Championship with 27 goals.
"What’s he scored 10? He got 27 last season. I think missing 17 goals speaks for itself, doesn’t it really?” McCarthy said.
"He is such a difficult player for the opposition to deal with. He not only scores his goals, he creates goals because he is such a threat with his power and pace.”
The Town boss says any team would suffer from having so many of their key players missing with his old club Wolves - who are 14th this season having finished seventh a year ago - having similarly lost players this season.
"It would have an adverse effect on any of them,” McCarthy added. "If you look at where I came from, Wolves, they lost Nouha Dicko [injured], Bakary Sako [joined Crystal Palace], Jordan Graham [injured] and Benik Afobe [joined Bournemouth].
"They’re a similar team and I know their fans aren’t happy and they’re getting a bit of grief.
"Losing those four, they can’t get like for like and I’m afraid I can’t get like for like in terms of loans or signings for Ryan Fraser, Teddy Bishop, Didz and Murph. It’s just not going to happen.
"But I’ve not complained about it because there’s no point. We always make do with the best we’ve got and make the best of it.”
McGoldrick and Bishop have given glimpses of what Town fans have missed while they have been out of action and will hopefully see more regularly next season, but McCarthy says their ability is allied with hard work, which he feels is a sometimes underrated quality.
"When you’re not playing well hard work gets so undermined and it’s almost like it’s a dirty word,” he said.
"I was discussing this earlier. Didzy gets his chances and he plays better when he works hard.
"I was talking about the Bayern Munich team that had the two wingers, Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben, and their coach who won the treble [Jupp Heynckes] left them out.
"When he was asked why he said, ‘Because you don’t track back and you don’t do all the dirty stuff’.
"And we’re talking about Robben and Ribery, who are arguably the best wingers in the world, certainly two of the best.
"What is wrong with it? They have got that sprinkling of stardust, but unless they work they don’t play in the team.
"And I loved that, that a top coach, a top manager who has won everything says to two of them, ‘You don’t run, you’re not playing’ in no uncertain terms.
"And do you know what they did? They started running around and tracking back and doing all the dirty work.
"So, if we can add Didzy and Bish doing all that and their sprinkling of stardust, which they quite clearly have - and we had Ryan Fraser doing it as well, it was lovely to see him today, he’s another one who worked his socks off which was probably why he ended up tearing his hamstring as badly as he did - they would add that but they don’t add it unless they’re running around and working hard like everybody else.”