Town goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski has attributed the team’s recent improvement to new boss Paul Lambert being able to restore players’ self-belief, something he felt was lacking under previous manager Paul Hurst.
Lambert has only had two games in charge — home and away draws with Preston and Reading respectively — and faces by far his biggest test when promotion-chasing West Bromwich Albion, also the Championship’s highest-scoring team, visit Portman Road on Friday evening for a live-on-Sky clash.
But Bialkowski and his colleagues are revelling in an atmosphere of positivity introduced by ex-Norwich boss Lambert and his all-new backroom team, even if they remain bottom of the table five points from safety after winning just once in their opening 17 games of the current campaign.
Fresh from the international break, the 31-year-old Pole said: "It’s been good and it’s always nice to have a couple of days off because it’s such a long season and we need to clear our minds and get ready to go again.
"But we’ve been working hard as well under the new gaffer and it’s looking very promising because he’s such a positive guy.
"The first day we met him he told us how he wants us to play and we plugged in straight away.
"We’ve been working very hard on the training pitch and I think we have shown in the two games we have played under him that we can be very good.
"Positivity is a big thing. Obviously, most of us — if not all of us — were very low because of the situation we were in.
"The gaffer came in and told us he just wanted us to enjoy ourselves. He came over positively and said all we needed to do was just enjoy what we were doing out on the pitch and go from there.
"Obviously, it is difficult when you cannot win games, because when you are winning games the world looks brighter and everything is much better.
"But when you are not winning and you are not performing well you are down. We try to keep ourselves up but it’s very difficult.
"I think the best thing that has happened to this club is that Paul Lambert came in. I never knew him before but as soon as he arrived he brought us the positivity that we needed.
"We actually believe in ourselves again, which is the most important thing in football. If you don’t believe in yourself you’re not going to get very far. When you start believing in yourself you can go as far as you want.”
Town go into Friday’s fixture against the fifth-placed Baggies still seeking their first home win of the season, having drawn six and lost two of their games at Portman Road.
"We have such a good away following and we have shown a couple of times that we can play decent football away from home,” added Bialkowski.
"But we have been lacking it at home this season so it’s important to us to show our fans that we can play good attacking football, very intense football, and we need their backing.
"It’s going to be a big crowd against West Brom and we are desperate to show our supporters that we have what it takes to get out of this situation.
"I’ve heard it is going to be a 20,000-plus crowd and it is great that they are going to show up in such big numbers because we really need them.
"Everyone at the club believes in Paul Lambert and what he is saying.
"Straight away he sold us the idea of how he wants us to play and we have been watching videos nearly every day.
"It’s actually working and you can see on the pitch how much we are improving. All of a sudden everyone is believing in themselves so it’s all very positive.
"I know West Brom are pushing for promotion but there are no easy games in this league. I think it is the toughest league in the world and we need to be 100 per cent in every single game, otherwise we are going to get punished.
"We have a different mentality now going into games. We are positive and, while we are obviously thinking about the opposition and how to stop them, we are first and foremost showing them how we are going to play. That’s a good thing.”