Town host Reading on Saturday looking to continue their positive recent Portman Road form as they go into a busy spell of home fixtures.
After this weekend’s game against the Royals, the Blues have an away game against leaders Wolves next Saturday before back-to-back festive fixtures at Portman Road, against QPR on Boxing Day and Derby on December 30th.
Two more home games follow after the January 2nd trip to Fulham, the FA Cup tie with Sheffield United and the return to Championship action against Leeds United.
The Blues, who have won six, drawn one and lost three on Suffolk soil so far this season, are unbeaten in their last three at Portman Road, beating Preston 3-0 and Nottingham Forest 4-2, while only a last-gasp Sheffield Wednesday equaliser prevented them from winning the home game sandwiched by those two, which ended 2-2.
Town’s sixth-place finish in 2014/15 was built on the platform of a strong Portman Road record - won 15, drew five, lost three - with only Middlesbrough bettering their home form during that campaign, and merely on goal difference.
Manager Mick McCarthy is pleased that Town are starting to make Portman Road somewhere to be feared once again after a less than impressive record during 2016/17 when they won eight, drew 10 and lost five of their 23 home games.
"It wasn’t great last year,” McCarthy admitted, "But the team’s better than it was last year, maybe that’s the biggest difference in results, and we’ve scored goals. Of course, we’d like to build on that home form.”
McCarthy is aware that most fans only see their team at home, so the general impression of Town and how they are faring is drawn most from their games at Portman Road.
"We had this discussion last season and I’m fully aware of where our main body of support comes from, it comes from Portman Road and they want to see us play well,” he said.
"I guess they want to see us win first and foremost and playing well and winning is a real tonic for everybody.”
Asked whether he sets points targets ahead of spells of games such as the one over Christmas and New Year, McCarthy said: "I do set points targets, yes. Three on Saturday! That’s as far as I look. It’s great if you achieve those points targets, but it’s horrible if you don’t. It’s like we’ve not reached our target. That’s only a negative for me.
"So, I set my target for Saturday and if we’ve won I’ll be feeling thrilled and if we’ve lost I’ll be feeling lousy. But at least it’s not affected my next game. I get over that and we plan for Wolves.”
Much is often made of Town having to travel long distances to their away games, but equally the same applies to clubs when they visit the Blues. Does McCarthy believe that has an impact on opposition sides?
"I always hope so, we’re always travelling, jumping on the bus,” he said. "I’ve said before, in terms of playing football, we’re geographically challenged.
"We go up to Middlesbrough and it’s six hours up there and even worse if you’re coming back and you’ve got a game on Tuesday.
"Lads stiffen up, so that makes it difficult but I’ve always taken the view that whatever distance we have to travel, they’ve all got to come here. And if it makes their life harder, I’m delighted.”
Asked whether the onus is more on the Blues to take the game to the opposition at home than it has been in the recent away games at Middlesbrough, Derby and Aston Villa, McCarthy responded: "You were at the Sunderland game, at Preston, at Sheffield Wednesday, I know we lost to Norwich but I thought we were pretty much on top in that as well.
"I think you might find rather than our approach being somewhat different when we go away it’s that Middlesbrough are at home and when we’ve gone to Leeds, they’re at home, when we go to Millwall, they’re at home.
"If I could solve the puzzle of why teams play better at home and not so good away, I’ve said before, I’d write the book, sell it and make billions.”
The Town boss says he started to make the trip to watch Reading, who are 14th, five points and five places behind the Blues, in action at home to Cardiff on Monday, a game which ended 2-2, but was thwarted by the inclement conditions.
"I set off to go but I’m afraid weather and traffic foiled me so I turned around,” he added. "I watched it on the television, of course, and I’ve subsequently watched it since and another two games.
"I thought Cardiff were very good for the first 25 minutes, I thought they started better. I think Reading are a good side, they’ve got a way of playing and Cardiff didn’t allow them to do it, but then they conceded a really sloppy goal - an own goal - from a corner kick.
"And then another one, and of course, as usual, I left 10 minutes before the end. On this occasion I left my house 10 minutes before the end and got in the car to drive to Ipswich. I had to unfreeze my car doors.
"And I got a call on the way from Fiona, my wife, asking if I knew the result. I said I didn’t and she said it was two-all. I said, ‘Wow!’. I’ve watched the last 10 minutes a few times since.
"Typical Cardiff, typical of Warney’s teams, they kept going, kept pushing, kept putting balls into the box, kept putting them under pressure and it worked in the end and they got a great draw out of it, which looked unlikely when I left.”
Under manager Jaap Stam Reading are well-known for their Dutch-influenced possession-based football. McCarthy points out that the Blues have had some decent results against sides playing in a similar vein so far this season.
"Brentford were very much possession-based. Nottingham Forest were very much possession-based. Derby were very much possession-based, and we did all right in them, didn’t we?” he said.
"There are different styles and it’s not particularly one style that’s always successful as we’ve seen.
"And a lot of styles depend on what players you’ve got as well. And it’s doing the best you can with the players you’ve got. Not any one style, in my view.”
Bartosz Bialkowski will again be in goal for the Blues with Jordan Spence continuing at right-back and Jonas Knudsen on the left with skipper Luke Chambers and Adam Webster the centre-halves.
Cole Skuse and Callum Connolly will again be in the deeper midfield roles, while McCarthy will be forced into at least one change in the trio ahead of them with Emyr Huws ruled out for the rest of the season having undergone knee surgery.
The Blues boss may well opt to return to the three which started the Sheffield Wednesday match prior to David McGoldrick’s injury with the returning Irish international on the right, Martyn Waghorn dropping into the central role, having been the lone striker at Boro last week, and Bersant Celina on the left. If that is the case Grant Ward will be unlucky to drop to the bench.
🺠| As always, plenty going on the #itfc FanZone tomorrow afternoon...
👉 https://t.co/0Gu1sAiwf0 pic.twitter.com/DjDCfzNJs2– Ipswich Town FC (@Official_ITFC) December 15, 2017
Joe Garner, a half-time sub at the Riverside last week, will return to the starting line-up as the out-and-out striker.
Teddy Bishop is again likely to play a part from the bench, while Tommy Smith will probably be in the 18 having recovered from the calf injury he sustained while away with New Zealand last month.
The Royals, who are unbeaten in five, winning twice, and have lost only once in their last eight to leaders Wolves, will be without midfielder John Swift (hamstring) and Sam Smith (knee), while Garath McCleary (groin) and George Evans (thigh) are back in training but not expected to feature.
Callum Harriott (hamstring), Stephen Quinn, Joseph Mendes and Jordan Obita (all knee) remain sidelined.
Reading boss Stam, who could name the same team for the fifth successive match, is aware that the Blues are a tough prospect at Portman Road and hopes his side will be able to impose their style of football on Town.
"It's another tough game for us. Ipswich are a team who are doing well,” he told BBC Radio Berkshire.
"They've got some new players, play some good football, have a threat going forward with their physique and everybody knows what Mick McCarthy wants to do with his team.
"Especially at their ground, it's not easy to beat them so we know what to expect there and we need to deal with that and hopefully play our own game."
Town have just about had the better of the Royals historically, winning 24 times (23 in the league), drawing 10 (10) and losing 23 (23).
Away from home this season, Reading have won four, drawn two and lost four.
The teams last met at Portman Road in February when Tom Lawrence scored twice to take his tally for the season to 10, eight of them in his last eight games.
The Blues will deserved to claim the three points against an under par Royals side who levelled twice through Jordon Mutch and then Obita.
At the Madejski Stadium in September last year Danny Williams netted the game’s third penalty deep in second-half injury time to hand Reading a 2-1 victory over the Blues, Knudsen having been adjudged to have hauled down Joey van den Berg at a corner.
In first-half injury time Ward had been harshly penalised for handball for the game’s first spotkick and McCleary put the Royals in front, then Brett Pitman fired home Town’s penalty five minutes after the break having been fouled by Tyler Blackett.
Reading midfielder Stephen Quinn is the younger brother of ex-Blue Alan, while Town manager McCarthy has previously confirmed that he targeted Reading striker Yann Kermorgant when he joined Bournemouth from Charlton in January 2014.
Another striker, Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, came close to joining the Blues on loan from Wolves in the summer but the Royals made a £3 million permanent offer for the Icelandic international.
Midfielder Swift had a trial with Town in November 2014 when a Chelsea player and McCarthy was impressed by the then-19-year-old, who joined the Royals on a permanent basis in the summer of 2016.
Like Swift, Dutch midfielder Van den Berg similarly spent time on trial with the Blues, in September 2006 following his release by Heerenveen.
Saturday’s referee is Peter Bankes from Liverpool, who has shown 65 yellow cards and seven red in 15 games so far this season.
Bankes’s last Town game was the 2-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest in November last year in which he booked David McGoldrick and two visiting players.
Prior to that he was in charge of the 0-0 draw at Wolves three months earlier in which one of his linesmen disallowed what replays showed was a perfectly good Daryl Murphy goal.
He also awarded the home side a penalty after Webster had fouled Bodvarsson, who is now with Saturday’s visitors, but Bialkowski saved the Icelander’s spotkick, and booked seven players, five of them from Town: Knudsen, Chambers, Christophe Berra, Bishop and sub Kevin Bru.
Bankes, who is in his fourth season as an EFL referee, had taken charge of two Town games before that one, January 2016’s 0-0 draw at Burnley, in which he cautioned two Clarets, and the 2-2 home draw with Bristol City in September 2015 in which he booked three of the visitors.
Squad from: Bialkowski, M Crowe, Spence, Iorfa, Knudsen, Kenlock, Webster, Chambers, T Smith, Skuse, Connolly, Bru, Downes, Bishop, Ward, Celina, McGoldrick, Sears, Garner, Waghorn.