Skipper Luke Chambers has saluted fans for their support this season and hopes they continue to back the team in their struggle to survive in the Championship.
The experienced defender looked back to Friday’s 2-1 home defeat by promotion-chasing West Bromwich Albion and ahead to Wednesday’s visit to Portman Road from a 14th-placed Bristol City side looking to avoid a fifth successive league defeat.
Chambers, who is Town’s only ever-present in the current campaign, said: "Fair play to the club for doing the promotion that they did for the Albion game.
"That certainly shows the fanbase is there — we just need to start picking up some wins to get them back in here regularly.
"Hopefully we have sent them away with a lot more encouragement than we have recently.
"I don’t think I’m telling a lie when I say the last three games have shown how far ahead we are compared to where we’ve been. That’s the positive we need to take from games.
"When we’re in the ascendancy, like we were at Reading and there were chances to score, we have to score more goals and be a bit more clinical. That’s in both boxes and it’s not just the forwards.”
The 33-year-old defender remains upbeat about Town’s chances of avoiding the drop into League One, especially with the upturn in performances since Paul Lambert took over as manager three games ago.
He added: "There are a lot of frustrations from supporters nowadays because we’re up against it massively.
"In the Championship there are budgets and things like that but you should be able to come to the game and enjoy it.
"I think they enjoyed it on Friday night, even though we’ve not won the game, and credit to the manager because he’s gone out of his way to meet with fans and try to bring about a bond that I think has been missing for quite a while now — possibly since our play-off season.
"There’s been a bit of negativity from all sides really but the way they’ve stayed with us since day one of the season has shown how much they want to get behind the team.
"It’s there to be seen and if you turn up to games like Friday you can see the fanbase is there.
"We really appreciate it and at the end we went over to say thank you to everyone who was still in the stadium.
"I think they will stay with us now because if we play like that it won’t be too long before it starts to turn.
"It’s our job to entertain and the manager has told us to play in a way where we all know exactly what our jobs are.
"We know that if someone doesn’t do something in particular they won’t be playing. That’s the frustration, because we need to turn that positive feeling into goals and wins.”
Meanwhile, Town's table-topping U23s are in action away against fourth-placed Millwall at the Lions' Calmont Road training ground this afternoon (KO 1.30pm).