Boss Mick McCarthy says there’s no panic at Town ahead of Saturday’s trip to third-bottom Burton Albion despite the Blues having lost six of their last eight matches in the Championship, including the last three, and slipping to 11th in the table as a result.
"No, I’m not panicking,” McCarthy said at Thursday’s pre-match press conference, which was shown live on TWTV. "What would it achieve anyway? What could I do if I panicked, how is that going to make anything better?
"I tend to think keeping calm about it and keeping doing what we’re doing [is better, even] if that’s [seen as] a sign of madness because we’ve not been winning games.
"But panicking and changing it and just doing different things is not going to achieve a great deal, is it? I’ve always believed in trying to keep that calm demeanour, inside and and out.
"It’s easier to keep on the outside sometimes than it is on the inside, but I believe we’ve been playing well and if we can replicate the performance we produced on Sunday then we’ll do better against some of the other teams. They’re a good side Norwich.”
McCarthy dismissed the suggestion that having a number of players such as Adam Webster, Tom Adeyemi and Joe Garner on their way back from injury had an impact on his team's performance as they were beaten 1-0 by the Canaries, extending their winless derby run to nine matches and nearly nine years.
"We missed chances on Sunday, that’s what we did,” he responded. "You can’t say any of those players didn’t perform well.
"Garns ran out of juice and so did Tom Adeyemi. Whether others did or not, it’ll help all of us, me, the rest of the players, the team, the fans, the club if I’ve got everybody fit and that includes Tom and Emyr Huws, Teddy Bishop, Luke Hyam, we’ve had loads of injuries.
"But I don’t think that affected that performance on Sunday. I think the performance in the first half was really good. I was very pleased with it and we should have been in front.
"The fact that we weren’t was because we just didn’t take our chances unlike in games earlier on in the season.”
The Blues boss fielded a front three of Garner, David McGoldrick and Martyn Waghorn against Norwich and was pleased with their performances even if none of the got on the scoresheet.
"I thought they played well on Sunday,” he added. "I spoke to the lads and they were quite happy with the shape and the way we played and the lads up front.
"In the first six games we would probably have put three of those chances away, that was just what was happening, they were flying in the net and they’re not at the moment.
"And they had the one bit of quality, which punished us. I still think we had the better chances in the game.
"They’ve got to do their work, they’ve got to track back but I thought it was a good performance from those three and all of them had chances.
"I wasn’t unhappy at all with the performance of the team or with that front three. I think the players thought it had worked as well.”
McCarthy says the squad have begin to put Sunday’s disappointment behind them and trained well at Playford Road on Thursday.
"We’ve had a terrific session, a really sharp and positive session this morning, I was really pleased with it,” he added.
After the good start which saw the Blues win their first four Championship matches, the recent run has led to a return of last season’s discontentment among supporters.
"I don’t want to lose goodwill with the fans, they’re the ones who are always going to be coming and watching and supporting the club,” McCarthy continued.
"It was great early on, I’m not saying it’s turned now, but I think these next three games [Burton, Cardiff away and Preston at home] are going to have a big bearing on it.”
The Town boss believes his squad has played well in recent games even if they haven’t got the results he feels they deserved and isn’t getting unduly concerned about being sucked towards the wrong end of the table.
"I’m not sitting at home worrying myself sick,” he continued. "Last season when we played I didn’t think we played particularly well. We didn’t look like we were going to score at times.
"It’s been different in the performances that we’ve had recently, Leeds away, Sheffield United away, Bristol City at home. Certainly against Norwich we had our chances.
"It’s not like we’re playing lousy by any stretch of the imagination, whereas I admitted last year sometimes we were. But we need to win a game.”
He added: "In the first six games we were top scorers, things were flying in. Have we had fewer chances? I don’t think so.
"I think we’ve created chances in every game we’ve played in over the last six or seven games. We’ve just not put them away. We’ll keep working on that and a clean sheet would be nice amongst it all.”
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McCarthy says he and his staff continually work on taking opportunities in training: "We work constantly at finishing and different sorts of sessions to create the chances that you would get, at the pace you would get them, whether they’re crosses or through balls or up, back and through.
"We constantly work at that. I think we all know there are times when there are barren times when you just don’t get one and you wonder how.
"And that’s how it is for strikers, sometimes it goes in off his knee or off his backside and he’ll get a goal and suddenly it starts again. So I’m hoping that’s going to be on Saturday.”
McCarthy believes that with a fit squad to choose from Town are capable of battling for a play-off place.
"I said at the start of the season that if we can get in the top 10 and stay there and be pushing for those top six positions we’d always have a chance,” he said. "But we’ve got to maintain that top 10 status so we can at least push for it.”
McCarthy brushed aside the claim that his defenders might be hampered by switching from a three-man backline to a four and back again regularly in recent weeks.
"They all train together, that’s a good reason to put an excuse on it, isn’t it? I think we’ve been better as a back four, to be quite honest, but I go back to last season playing a back three or a back five in the month that we started at Aston Villa, that probably kept us in the league.”
Also key to staying in the Championship last season was the 2-1 Good Friday victory over the Brewers, a result McCarthy wants to see repeated on Saturday.
"It was, those two results back to back, that and then Newcastle here, certainly cemented our position in the league because we were under the cosh, we could have got dragged into that bottom three.
"It was a really good performance that night and it’ll require similar again, the same if not better again.
"It’ll be a tough game. They’ve had a difficult run, it’s not an easy place to go and play and again we’ll have to be really totally committed to playing and play as well as we did on Sunday.”
Burton are without a win or a goal in the last five matches but McCarthy says they have shown defensive resolve in at least some of those games, their trips to Bristol City and QPR having ended 0-0.
"They’re not finishing whatever chances they’re getting,” he said. "I’ve watched three halves of their games so far and I’ll be watching the other halves this afternoon.
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"They’ve been OK. I know Villa ended up beating them 4-0, they had a deflection and then they had one where somebody was down and they were screaming because they wanted to get the trainer on, that was the third goal and it just ran away from them.
"And I think similarly with Wolves. And on other occasions they’ve been tough and hard to beat, hard to play against.”
Nigel Clough did an impressive job to keep Burton in the Championship for a second season - last year was their first in the second tier - but McCarthy says he has a squad of players with experience at this level.
"For sure, but that team is full of other Championship clubs’ ex-players. I looked at the front three in one of the games, it was Lucas Akins, Sean Scannell, Lloyd Dyer. They’ve also got Joe Mason, they’ve got Reg Varney, who was here.
"They’re not without quality. Luke Murphy, who went from Crewe to Leeds for a million quid. They’ve got Jake Buxton, Ben Turner at the back, Kyle McFadzean. They’re not mugs by any stretch of the imagination.
"I know you might think some of them are journeymen but they are Championship players of Championship quality and we’ll have to play really well to beat them on Saturday.”
Given their current position and Town’s recent form, McCarthy expects Burton to take the game to the Blues.
"I think they’ll be looking at our results and there’ll be somebody up there talking to Nigel Clough saying, ‘Have you seen their results, do you think you can beat these, they’re having a tough time’.
"That’s just what will be happening, so I’d imagine they’ll want to be on the front foot, attacking us and making it a really difficult afternoon for us.”
Any extra pressure to win at Burton given the - on paper - tougher fixtures which follow? "On both of us, I’m sure they’re feeling the same. I don’t sit and worry about the other fixtures.
"I sat here last year when we were going to Aston Villa and we had [tough games coming up] and I said we’ll probably be all right, we’d got Brighton, Leeds, Villa and then we probably had one of our best months.
"In the past they’ve inspired us, the tougher games, the Cardiff away or the Preston at home. But I’d really like to concentrate on Burton and try and get three points there.”
McCarthy has lined his side up in 4-2-3-1, 3-5-2 and 4-3-3 systems in the last three games, having been a staunch advocate of 4-4-2 for much of his management career, including his most successful spell with the Blues, the 2014/15 play-off campaign.
He says he’d like a more stable formation, although feels he’s currently not got the personnel available for his most favoured system and that the division requires a greater degree of flexibility these days.
"I would love to if I had everybody fit, yes. I haven’t got a 4-4-2 team at the minute,” he reflected.
"Is that still my default formation? I think it’s changed. I think the league’s changed, they way teams play has changed, definitely.
"And I think it requires different things. If we’ve lost the last three you can look at it and say maybe it’s because I’m changing the system, which I’m sure all the keyboard warriors are.
"But I’ve done it in the past and I’ve won games doing it. I changed to 3-5-2 when we went to Villa and we won the game. Nobody even mentioned that.
"The game against Birmingham having lost to 6-1 to Charlton [in the final pre-season friendly] with a four, we tip up and play three at the back and we win. Nobody says anything then.”
He believes changes are required more on a match by match, horses for courses basis in the Championship now.
"I think so, we’re not playing well enough at one particular way that we could do it [every week],” he added.
"I had 4-4-2 with the sometimes much-maligned Tabby and Ando and yet they tucked in and did the gig.
"But then there were other things they didn’t do as well as some of the other players we’ve had.
"We had Murph and Didz in their pomp and Freddie at the time. It was good. I just don’t have that type.
"And even if I did I still might have to change it because I just think teams have changed, I think there’s more quality come in, the way teams play, certainly there’s more teams playing 4-3-3 or one up and one in behind.”
Having been pleased with the performance against Norwich, if not the result, McCarthy may well opt to stick with the 4-3-3 at Burton.
Bartosz Bialkowski will continue in goal with either Jordan Spence or Dominic Iorfa at right-back, Jonas Knudsen at left-back and skipper Luke Chambers and Webster the centre-halves. Tommy Smith is likely to be among the subs.
In midfield, Cole Skuse will be joined by two of Tristan Nydam, Grant Ward and Flynn Downes with Tom Adeyemi expected to drop out with a recurrence of his hamstring injury. McGoldrick, Garner and Waghorn will be up front.
Burton boss Clough believes that Town’s drop into mid-table in recent weeks following their blistering start is a fair reflection of their true standing in the division.
"Ipswich are probably now where they should be. You get these good runs in the Championship and everyone’s expectations go through the roof and then it levels off and people say they then aren’t very good.
"Through the course of a season most teams will go on these runs. Without doing too much differently you could go five unbeaten or not win for five."
He added: "They are very competitive — big and strong with players on the day who can hurt you and who are very experienced Championship players.”
Clough will be without full-back John Brayford due to a hamstring injury, centre-half Ben Turner (knee) is expected to be OK but forward pair Akins (hamstring) and Mason (back) are both doubts.
In April, in Town’s first ever competitive fixture at the Pirelli Stadium, ex-Blue Luke Varney netted an own goal and Freddie Sears his sixth of the season as the beat Burton Albion 2-1.
After a first-half in which Myles Kenlock had a goal wrongly ruled out for offside, Burton sub Varney nodded a corner past his own keeper on 52 and Sears added a second in the 79th minute, before the Brewers pulled a goal back via a Akins penalty four minutes from time.
Town withstood some late pressure to claim the three points and all but confirm their Championship status.
In the inaugural competitive match between the sides at Portman Road in October last year, skipper Chambers and Sears were on target as Town ended a five-game goalless and winless run with a 2-0 victory over Burton.
Chambers headed in a Sears cross in the 15th minute and Sears ended his own 38-game goal drought two minutes from the end to seal Town’s first and still only October victory under McCarthy’s management.
No member of the current Town squad has played for Burton, but striker Varney joined the Brewers in January with his short-term Blues contract having come to an end.
Former Town loan keeper Stephen Bywater joined the Brewers from Doncaster in January 2016. The 36-year-old made 17 appearances for the Blues in a half-season spell in 2008.
Winger Dyer, 35, moved to the Pirelli Stadium in the summer of 2016 after a spell with Burnley at the end of the previous season having turned down a contract with Town in February 2016 following a successful trial.
Burton left-back Ryan Delaney, 21, who has been on loan at Cork City and whose agent is ex-Blue Stephen Hunt, spent time training with Town during their 2016 summer training camp at Carton House in Ireland before subsequently joining the Brewers from Wexford Youth.
Saturday’s referee is Simon Hooper from Wiltshire, who has shown 40 yellow cards and one red in 14 games so far this season.
Hooper’s most recent Town game was last month’s 3-1 home defeat to Bristol City in which he yellow-carded Knudsen, Garner and one Robins player.
Prior to that he in charge of the 1-1 draw at home to Preston in January 2016 when he showed yellow cards to Brett Pitman and three Lilywhites.
In the preceding September he was the man in the middle during the 3-0 Capital One Cup defeat at Manchester United in which he booked only Jonny Parr.
Before that he refereed the Blues’ 2-0 home victory over Burnley at Portman Road in August of the same year in which he yellow-carded visitors’ winger Michael Kightly and no one else.
Hooper officiated in the 1-0 defeat at Reading in August 2014 in which he booked Smith, Tyrone Mings and Christophe Berra and two home players.
He also took control of the 1-0 win at Yeovil the previous season and the 3-0 home win against Crystal Palace in April 2013.
Probable squad: Bialkowski, Gerken, Spence, Iorfa, Connolly, Knudsen, Kenlock, Chambers, Webster, T Smith, Skuse, Nydam, Downes, Ward, Celina, Rowe, Garner, Sears, McGoldrick, Waghorn.