Boss Mick McCarthy is weighing up whether to change his system ahead of Saturday’s trip to Cardiff City but with the Blues having been unbeaten in eight - although drawing seven, including the last six - is keen not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater”.
Town have used a 3-5-2 system for the most part since the beginning of the year rather than the 4-4-2 formation McCarthy has tended to prefer throughout his 25 years in management.
Having found goals and wins hard to come by, if not draws, has he considered a switch? "We’re unbeaten playing that way and we’ve had a lot of chances playing that way, just not so many on Saturday. Although, to be fair, we did in the first half, we did have two or three chances.
"And yet we remain still unbeaten. There’s the dilemma. Let’s change it all and throw the baby out with the bathwater.
"We’ve played OK. In fact we’ve played well up until I would say certainly Saturday when we weren’t particularly good. But other than that, in most games we’ve played far better playing that way.
"We’ll see. I’ve had a look at Cardiff, I know Neil and how he plays, he’s not going to throw any surprises up.”
When McCarthy initially played the system, at QPR in the first match of 2017, he started with three strikers with Tom Lawrence utilised in a deeper role behind David McGoldrick and Brett Pitman.
"I did and it was OK, and if you remember I changed to 4-4-2 and we played very well, so we’ll see,” the Town manager recalled.
Pitman came off the bench to created Lawrence’s last-gasp equaliser in the 1-1 draw at Oakwell on Saturday and McCarthy says the 29-year-old is in his thoughts for the trip to Cardiff.
"Yes, of course,” he added. "I said on Saturday, the ones who were left out, you always want them to have a positive response, a good response, and he did. He came on and put in a bit of quality and we managed to score off it.”
Grant Ward and Freddie Sears also impressed from the bench at Barnsley, not the first time players have made an impression having been left out of the starting XI, which pleases the Blues boss.
"We’ve got good lads, we don’t have sulkers,” he continued. "That annoys me as much as anything in the game that, if when they’re in the team we’re all friends and everything’s good, if they’re out of the team they’re sulking. They’ve got to be ready to play and Brett was, so that’s great.”
Regarding Lawrence, whose goal at the weekend was his 11th of his loan spell from Leicester, he added: "He’s shown great desire since he’s been here. Saturday was a really important goal and a great point for us, but he’s just been terrific, his all-round performances since he came through the door have been great, he’s just got better and better.
"He’s been a good signing, I’ve had some good ‘uns, I’ve had some bad ‘uns but he’s been a good one, certainly.”