Skipper Luke Chambers would rather look ahead with confidence to a brighter future than reflect on the events of last season when Town finished 16th in the Championship, their lowest end-of-season slot for 58 years.
His own future was uncertain and in the January transfer window he even came close to a return to former club Nottingham Forest, where he was the fans’ player of the year in 2011, as Town stalled on a new contract offer before eventually agreeing a two-year extension in the final few weeks of the campaign.
But while he has no desire to dwell on the past, Chambers turned back the clock to admit: "I don’t want to keep going over my situation. That’s gone now and I’m enjoying my football and enjoying being here.
"I just want to be successful and I think we’ve been pretty successful since I’ve been here.
"Last season wasn’t good in anyone’s imagination. It was a tough time, we weren’t winning games and we found it difficult. I didn’t know where I was going to be so, no, it wasn’t a fun six months for me personally.”
While Chambers was looking to secure his immediate future with a fresh deal, owner Marcus Evans was delaying a new offer until it was clear which division Town would be in this season as they were scrapping to avoid the drop into League One.
He added: "I suppose I can see it from that point of view, but that conversation would have been better taking place earlier on than it did actually happen.
"But it’s gone and I’m happy here now. I never wanted to leave. I don’t know whether he wanted me to leave — I don’t think he did but it’s his club and he can run it as he wants to run it.
"But it’s not going to have the best effect on people if somebody who has played every game for virtually five years is allowed to run down his contract until the last few weeks of the campaign.
"Some lads would have been in there sweating and they might have had 18 months left on their contracts, thinking ‘Where does it leave me?’
"At the end of the day, though, you’ve got to earn your place here. I feel I’ve tried to do everything I can to give myself the best opportunity to stay here and that’s all I can do individually. If someone doesn’t want me here as a player, that’s football and we have to deal with it and move on.
"I tried to do that to the best of my ability last year and I think everyone has seen, since I came here, how much I care about the club and how much I care about us winning games.
"I’ll do absolutely everything for anyone round the town, if they want to say hello to me. At the end of the day I’m just a normal guy playing football.”
Chambers played every second of every game in the Championship last season and only missed four league games in his first five seasons at Portman Road, so he found it strange having to sit out the recent clashes with Brentford, Fulham and QPR after picking up an ankle injury in the 4-3 win at Millwall.
He recalled: "It’s been alright in the last couple of games. I took a whack in the ribs at the weekend, it just seems like one thing after another at the minute.
"I’m enjoying being back in the team and I enjoyed playing well with the team at the weekend. We are buoyed by that performance at Elland Road and looking to build on it.
"I felt it when I did it but generally the pain only lasts for a couple of minutes and then you try to get on with it. I was never going to come off — unless somebody’s going to drag me off I’m not coming off. I played on, we got three points and that made it all the sweeter in the end.
"Unfortunately I was out for a few weeks but I didn’t miss too many games thankfully. Originally, I was counting how many games I would miss but it wasn’t that many. I’m grateful to the physios for getting me back as quickly as they have.
"It’s not nice to miss games and I’m not the best spectator. It gave me a different perspective sitting in the stand and watching games but the more you do that the more you want to get back on the pitch. It was a nice break, maybe, but I didn’t enjoy it at all.
"I was here at the club pretty much morning, noon and night, trying to get as fit as possible as quickly as possible. I missed quite a few weeks of training and managed to do quite a lot of fitness work in four or five days to get me up to speed for the Bolton game.
"I’m now looking forward to getting back out there at Portman Road again and hopefully taking six points from two home games this week.”