The club’s need to reconnect with its ex-players, its fans and its community is at the heart of manager Paul Lambert’s long-term plans for Town.
"It just needs to reconnect, I think,” he said when asked what he felt is the biggest issue at the club.
"As I said before, I can’t speak for the last manager or anything like that, I can only speak about what I see.
"Mick McCarthy did great here in the time he was here, he did a great job. Paul Hurst came in for a short spell and I don’t know what’s happened there.
"But in my own opinion, and I’m not saying my way is right, I’m not saying it’s wrong, it’s just my way, but if you’ve got one team in the town, it has to pull the supporters back. It has to get the trust back to the club. It has to go into schools, all those sorts of thing have to reconnect.
"It doesn’t make sense, you’ve only got one team in the town and my job is to try and help that as well, not just manage the team but to manage that as well, which I love doing because it’s important to me that the town is behind the team.
"But we also have to recognise that we have to win games to do that. If you’re not winning games then you have to change personnel and players.
"I recognised the football team needed a little bit of help, from lads who knew the division. It’s a short turnaround on it, but at least the lads have come in.”
Since he came to the club Terry Butcher, John Wark, George Burley, Russell Osman and Mick Mills have all been invited to the training ground and the Blues’ 2000 play-off-winning skipper Matt Holland followed in their footsteps earlier in the week.
"Matty came in, we had a good chat, a good guy, I’ve done TV with Matty before,” Lambert said.
"I knew what he was like. He came in and I think he enjoyed it and it was good to see him.
"As I said before about the older generation, the football club’s got to reconnect with the guys, it cannot just ignore it, the guys are part of the history of the club, who did really well for the club. It’s all about reconnecting with everybody.”
Also invited to Playford Road this week for the second time since Lambert took over were the Blue Action fans’ group with the manager wearing one of their pin badges at his pre-match press conference.
"I did [meet with them] because I thought they were brilliant,” he said. "They’re brilliant at the games, they really are and the support they’ve given since we’ve been here has been great.
"I had a chat with the lads on Tuesday night, just hearing how they feel and the atmosphere and what we can try and help them with.
"It’s great, as I said before, a lot of work to be done here, it’s a challenge but the fans have been great, not just that group, everybody, but they’re the focal point of your so-called ‘singing end’ and I think it’s important to hear their views.”
During Saturday’s game the Town support will be augmented by around 60 fans from Fortuna Düsseldorf, making their annual pilgrimage to Portman Road.
Lambert says he’s been made aware of the link between the two sets of fans: "I’ve heard bits and pieces about it and, obviously I know the atmospheres in German football are really, really strong.
"I think the [exchange of] ideas between the two is a really good connection. Maybe the Ipswich fans go over there at certain times, I don’t know, but I think you can learn a lot from each other, different cultures and different atmospheres. So, I’m pretty sure it’ll be lively, that’s for sure. I’m pretty sure it’ll be lively in there.”
He added: "We just have to help the club in a lot of aspects and try and bring everybody together, supporters and everything, that’s really important.
"The supporters are the main thing at the club. Without them we don’t have a game, that’s the bottom line.
"If supporters don’t come to games, we don’t have a game, it’s up to us to get them back in. We have to get the [younger] generation of supporters back in, we have to get back into the community and the trust back into the club.
"You can’t have this town being the way it’s been with the football team, it has to reconnect. We’re slowly but surely getting that back, but we also need to start to win games. Once we do that, this could be a brilliant place.”