Town may have slipped off the promotion pace in the last week but skipper Luke Chambers confirmed the club is in a far better place than it was at this stage last year.
Defeat at Wolves last weekend, followed by the goalless stalemate with QPR on Boxing Day, leaves Mick McCarthy’s men in 10th place, five points adrift of the play-offs, ahead of tomorrow’s home clash with fourth-placed Derby County.
Chambers, 32, said: "In the dressing room I think it’s in a lot better place. Obviously, every year we come out and say the team spirit’s great, and we try to get through things.
Comparing now to last year everything is good but it could be better. We should have given ourselves a better chance of winning against QPR on Boxing Day but we didn’t do that and now we’re looking to get one over Derby again on Saturday.
"I don’t think we can afford to let the gap to the top six get any bigger. Look at Aston Villa; they’ve dropped out of the play-offs after not winning in five games.
"Any team can have a sticky patch, a losing run or a winning run. We showed earlier in the season that we are capable of winning four league games in a row and we’d won three out of four prior to the last two games.
"We’re still full of confidence — confident that we can still achieve something this season — and we’ll continue to push for that.”
Chambers & Co will settle for a repeat of their display at Pride Park just a few weeks ago when they triumphed 1-0 in a rearranged game, a result that Chambers rates as one of their most important of the season so far.
He added: "As a defender, to win 1-0 is perfect. The lads did their jobs and Callum [Connolly] scored another goal with his head. I’m not sure he knew too much about it because his fringe was in the way.
"It was a great performance and everyone put in a shift, concentrating from minute one to minute 95 or 96, whatever it was.
"When Bart was called upon he pulled off a great save. We didn’t nick the win because we always seemed to be in control of it. Derby had a lot of possession, like a lot of teams have had against us this season.
"But a lot of teams are allowed possession by us and we have the players capable of hurting opponents on the break, which is something we didn’t have in previous years.”
Asked if he felt it could be the big-spending Rams’ year after a series of failures, the Town captain responded: "We’ve seen this before. Every year we seem to say it’s their year — every year they seem to chuck £100 million at it. But you never know whose year it is going to be in the Championship.
"Anyone can win three or four in a row; anyone can lose three or four in a row. Things can change pretty quickly but we’ll just focus on ourselves and let everyone else do what they want to do. Like we always have done, we’ll just grind away and see where it takes us.”
Chambers is well aware of the danger posed by Derby striker David Nugent, a player who has consistently found the net against Town.
Overall, he has scored 15 in 16 games but his Portman Road record is particularly impressive — 10 in eight games for Preston, Portsmouth, Leicester, Middlesbrough and even the England U21 side against Moldova.
This will be his first visit in the colours of Derby and Chambers said: "He is paid to score goals and he’s always been successful because he’s a very good player.
"But he’s not the only one we’ve got to worry about at Derby. I’ve just watched a video and they have eight players they can choose from for their attacking line-up. That’s what the money in this league can get you.
"He’s scored a lot of goals against Ipswich and we’ll have to take care of him like we did a few weeks ago.
"As the gaffer often says, let’s not try to anger the bear, but it was good to keep a clean sheet that night.
"We’ve made mistakes that have cost us goals but I don’t think anyone has had a field day against us and played us off the park.
"I think we have definitely looked solid when we’ve had a back four that has been quite regular over the last couple of months. That’s definitely helped us.”