Christophe Berra is anxious that supporters do not overreact to Town’s recent lack of success at Portman Road, he and his team-mates having triumphed in just one of their last six home games.
That stutter in form has reaped only six points from a possible 18 and Berra has warned that tomorrow’s visit of QPR, two points better off than Town and now under the management of returning boss Ian Holloway, will not be an easy assignment.
Berra, 31, said: "This will be a tough game. We’ve played them in the past and they have always tended to be close games.
"They have players who have played in the Premier League and are on good salaries as well.
"Obviously it wasn’t working under the previous manager and people who didn’t feature under him could now looking like world beaters in training as they look to impress the new man.
"But teams who get on the bus and come to Portman Road know what they’re going to get and that’s a difficult game.
"It might be end-to-end or edge-of-your-seat stuff — only time will tell — but hopefully we can be more clinical than them, in their box when it comes to taking our chances and in ours when it comes to defending as well.”
Berra looked back to the 2-0 defeat by Forest last week and added: "It was only our second defeat at home this season. The other one was against Huddersfield when they scored from a corner.
"We have drawn too many games at home so hopefully we can maybe get a goal and make teams come at us, which will make the game a bit more open.
"I think we maybe struggle when teams sit in and deny us space behind them. We find that difficult to break down.
"Likewise, when we do it to teams they find it difficult. No matter who you are, it’s always difficult when teams get numbers behind the ball and make the spaces very small. It’s fine margins but we’ll be going out to get all three points on Saturday.”
Asked if he thought the fact that manager Mick McCarthy has recently opted for a more attacking midfield line-up makes it harder for him and his fellow defenders, Berra responded: "No, I don’t think so. If you look at the goals on Saturday against Forest they were just down to individual mistakes.
"The hardest things in football are keeping clean sheets and scoring lots of goals.
"Sometimes you’ve got to give a little bit and you have to remember we’re not Real Madrid or Bayern Munich. This Championship is so difficult that there are only small margins between us all.
"Sometimes in the past it’s gone for us and this season we’ve been inconsistent. We’ve won one, then maybe drawn and lost our next two and then done the same thing again. Hopefully we can get back to winning more games at home instead of drawing so many.
"We obviously want to win games, especially at home, but this is the Championship and we’re not world beaters. We’ve got to realise that.
"We’ve had it good in the past two or three seasons but we’re maybe going through a wee sticky spell just now and we need to get through that.
"Let’s be honest, we’re not a Newcastle United, so most games we play in it’s going to be small margins — one goal here or there and maybe two if we’re lucky.
"We know it’s going to be a tough, tough game. They have a new manager and they’ll be up for it after they beat Norwich 2-1.
"But there aren’t many teams who look forward to coming to Portman Road. We’ve got to make sure that when the game starts it’s going to tough for them too and hopefully our quality can shine through.”