Town boss Mick McCarthy says owner Marcus Evans remains “as hungry as ever" that the club should be challenging for promotion to the Premier League.
McCarthy recently stated that he still had the ambition of returning to the top flight, either with the Blues or his next club, having said that he will consider his Portman Road future in the summer.
"He’s as hungry as ever for this club to be challenging to get promotion, of course,” the Town manager said when asked about Evans’s ambitions for the club.
"Very much so. I had that discussion with him recently, that I don’t want to be middling, just finishing mid-table and nowhere to go, that’s not what I want to do.
"And to be fair to him, he doesn’t. So let’s try and finish as high as we can this year then we’ll plan for next.”
McCarthy admits he’s still keeping one eye on the relegation zone with the 15th-placed Blues only nine points away from the bottom three.
"Until we have enough points, yes, so that we know that we’re going to stay in the league,” he said.
"But it’s got less of a concern because of the way we’re playing and the way we’ve played over the last six games.
"If you’d asked me six games ago, which I think you probably did, then it was more of a concern, of course.
"But we’ve played well enough and looked solid enough and good enough that we will get the points required.”
Town are set to send out season ticket renewals in the next few weeks and McCarthy admits he understands why some supporters may be wavering when it comes to securing their seats for 2017/18.
The Blues boss has previously said fans’ thoughts about him, as well as the budget Evans makes available, will come into his thinking in the summer and he believes the remaining 11 games of the season will impact upon that.
"As I said, I don’t want to be walking up the track next year and there’s only 10,000 fans at the first game of the season. If that’s a reflection on me, I don’t want that,” he added.
"I want the fans to be proud of the players, of the club and proud of their team that they’re supporting, so the next few games and results are [crucial] in trying to get people to come and pay their money.
"The only way you’ll do it, you can try everything else, but the only way you do it is by having a good team that wins games, and you get fans in.”