Town boss Mick McCarthy says he’d settle for the Blues playing as they did for 65 minutes of Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat to Royale Union Saint-Gilloise when they face Barnsley in their opening Championship fixture at Portman Road next week, but won’t tolerate the type of mistakes which led to the two goals the Belgian second division side scored in three second half minutes to claim their unlikely victory.
The loss was Town’s second of pre-season - they lost 1-0 at League Two Barnet - while they drew with another League Two side, Cambridge United, and League One Charlton Athletic.
Whether pre-season results have much of a bearing on a side’s form once the campaign proper gets under way is an often discussed subject.
"I think you get everybody talking about it,” McCarthy said. "I’ve heard players from the Premier League talking about it. The last one I heard was one of the Liverpool lads.
"I think the performances, I’d settle for playing like that for 65 minutes and having the possession that we had and the chances that we had.
"I wouldn’t tolerate if we conceded goals like that too often, and nobody would tolerate it with me either.
"But it isn’t the same. By the way, those mistakes can still be made, but it isn’t the same because there’s five per cent extra somewhere.
"I know that as a player I didn't like it at all because it’s a friendly, they’re all friendlies.
"I wanted to win them but by definition it wasn’t a competitive game. I used to get stick in pre-season at times, I didn’t get stick in the league season too often. It’s just different.”
He believes there is a greater intensity to league games: "There’ll be an extra edge against Barnsley next week. We’ve battered [Royale Union] for most of the game, I think.
"We’ve mullered them for most of the game. For 65 minutes I’m delighted with us and we’ve scored and I thought we’d go on and win the game and we’ve made a mistake and it’s cost us.
"As I was and as everybody else is, there’s an intensity to it. We walk out here, there might be 15, there might be 18 there might be 20,000 people here, there’s points at stake, you’re all on edge.
"It’s a better feeling, you’re all on edge, you’ve got those nerves in your stomach. It’s much better.”
He added: "I know that there was a perception of the team that we didn’t play any football [last season] but we played great football today and I’m stood here and we’ve been beaten. It’s about winning games.”
One positive to be taken from the defeat was Daryl Murphy netting his first goal of pre-season from a corner, Town not having been as dangerous from set pieces last season as they had been in previous campaigns.
"We’re always trying to do it,” McCarthy added. "Kev Bru put a great ball in and it’s all about the delivery. If you get good delivery, you’ll score goals off them.
"That was a great delivery and in actual fact the delivery that he put in that ended up in our net was a good delivery. We work to score off freekicks and corners all the time.”
After a month of pre-season preparations the next few days will be more of a normal week as the Blues ready themselves for the opening fixture.
"It’ll be preparing to play Barnsley now,” McCarthy added. "We’ve had them watched the last couple of times, we’ll have the coverage of them so we can watch them and we’ll plan and prepare to play against them.”
The Town boss says the Championship will be as tough, if not tougher than ever: "If you want to count how many teams have played in the Premier League and who hasn’t, Burton, Rotherham, probably about four of them, maybe six of them haven’t been in the Premier League.
"And some of them have been in the Premier League regularly and recently, and are coming down with a whole load of money, as we’ve seen.
"So it’s going to be tough but as we’ve seen. It doesn’t matter how much dough you’ve got in the Championship, you’ve got to fight tooth and nail to get out of it as well.
"And it seems to me they’ve all added. They’ve all been prepared to add to their squads and it’s going to be a stronger league.”
Having finished in the play-offs for the first time in a decade in 2014/15 expectations were sky high going into last season, but after finishing seventh, four points off sixth, last term, fans are going into the new campaign with rather less confidence.
Does McCarthy believe that plays into Town’s hands? "I hope so, I’ve no idea. I can’t do anything about expectations.
"I think we had a relatively good season last year, it’s only because we finished below where we finished the season before that it seems like a bad season. Whether it plays into our hands I don’t know.”
Meanwhile, a Town XI - likely to be largely an U21s side - will be in action against AFC Sudbury on the 3G pitch at The Wardale Williams Stadium this evening (KO 7.45pm).