Brett Pitman has emphasised that under-fire Town boss Mick McCarthy has the total support of every one of his players as he struggles to arrest a slump in form.
McCarthy has taken most of the flak for Town’s failure this season — they have won just four of their last 16 league games — and there were even calls for his head following the dismal display in losing 2-0 to Fulham on Boxing Day at Portman Road.
Asked for his views about the treatment dished out in McCarthy’s direction, 28-year-old Pitman said: "It’s not nice and none of us want the manager to go. You can’t label this group of players as trying to get the manager sacked — far from it.
"Everyone’s fighting for him. He’s got a thick skin, he’s been around football [for a while] and I’m sure we will come out the other end of this.”
Pitman acknowledged that McCarthy’s future rests with the players but added: "He put a team out on Boxing Day that was more than capable of beating Fulham — but we just didn’t perform on the day.
"There are probably some teams that you can label as not playing and fighting for their manager but I don’t think that’s the case here at all.
"I think everybody, to a man, is behind the manager and supports the manager, as well as his staff, and is fighting and pulling in the right direction to turn things round.”
Most fans’ number one gripe appears to be Town’s brand of football but Pitman pointed out: "Ideally, every team would like to play the Barcelona style of football. Realistically, how many teams in the country actually play it? Probably not many.
"Yes, we [the forwards] would like slightly better service and for more chances to be created, but I would say there are probably a lot of teams in the country who want the same thing. We’ll just keep working hard together and hopefully the results will turn round.”
Pitman also admitted he was feeling the pressure at Portman Road due to the continued unrest in the stands. He said: "It’s tough playing at home and I think we’ve struggled, probably, throughout the whole of the season at home.
"That’s something we’ve got to change because you’re not going to be successful if you don’t get good home form.”
The striker was asked if he had any concerns about Town, currently 16th and eight points above the Championship drop zone, being sucked into a relegation battle. He replied: "You can never say never. It would be foolish to say we can’t get sucked into it but obviously we are hoping that we’re not going to be.
"We’ve got two massive games on Friday and Monday against teams that are below us. You get six points out of them and all of a sudden, because it’s such a silly league, you’re looking up again. Like I said, they are two massive games.
"We’re not looking as far ahead as QPR on Monday. We’ve only looked at Bristol City and we’ve worked hard on what we’re going to do to try to beat them.
"We haven’t looked at QPR or the games beyond that one. We’re focused purely on Bristol City on Friday night.”
Meanwhile, next Saturday's FA Cup third round opponents Lincoln City quickly sold their final allocation of tickets this morning, taking the total of Imps making the trip to 4,833.
The Vanarama National League side have been given virtually the whole of the Cobbold Stand.