Town boss Paul Lambert admits it’s going to take a huge effort for the Blues to grab the wins they need to avoid what looks all but certain relegation to League One from their final eight games with Hull City visiting Portman Road on Saturday.
The Blues remain bottom of the Championship with only three victories to their name all season and 13 points plus goal difference away from safety.
Asked what the realistic aim for the last eight games is, Lambert said: "You can win every game but you’re going to have to really go for it and we have to go for it now and hopefully we get the break I think our players deserve, we’ve just not had the break in certain moments.
"We’ve played really, really well and just lacked that little bit of a cutting edge, but I can’t fault the players with the way they’ve played or their effort or the commitment or the atmospheres.
"The only thing I can ask is a little break at the top end of the pitch. If we got that then we’d be in a different place. In the last six weeks, we’ve been outstanding and we should have had more than what we’ve got.”
Does he believe Town have to remain unbeaten for the remainder of the season? "It has to be a huge effort for everybody to get the wins, but anything is possible and as I’ve said before until somebody tells you it’s mathematically over you don’t believe it and you keep going.
"We’re certainly playing well enough to go and make a right good fist of it, that’s for sure.”
Town put in probably their best performance of the season as they drew 1-1 with Nottingham Forest a fortnight ago - their sixth 1-1 draw in seven matches - and seemed to be improving with every game. However, Lambert dismissed suggestions that the international break came at the wrong time for his side.
"I never get caught up in any of that,” he insisted. "It happens, so I never worry about it. The break’s happened.
"We were in really good form. We’ve trained really well again this week and we’ll go to try and play the way we have been over the last six weeks or so.
"But I never really get caught up in whether it’s come at a good time or a bad time, that’s the rules of football that the international break’s coming. It is what it is.”
He added: "The lads had a few days off and they came back and, to be fair, the team has always trained really high, really well. We don’t allow training to slack off.
"We make it high and when they work on the pitch, they work. There’s never really any slacking or anything.
"And you just come in and it seamlessly goes again, so we’ll just have to transfer that, what we’ve been doing, on a Saturday.”
Saturday’s opponents had a poor start to the campaign before going on a season-changing run between the end of October and start of January in which they won nine out of 13 in the league - including a streak of five wins on the spin - losing only once.
"You’ve got to remember Hull have still got lads that played in the Premier League there so they’re not long relegated,” Lambert said of the Tigers, who are 12th, six points off the play-offs.
"It’s a tough game for us, every game’s hard, they’re ahead of us in the league so we’re not favourites or anything like that but I think if anyone has watched us in the last couple of months they know we are a good side.”
Lambert, who has said there are one or two players suffering with bumps and bruises, is likely to stick largely with the team which impressed against Forest before the international break if he is able to do so.
** 2019 Player of the Year **
Voting tomorrow pre-match - in the FanZone and various points outside the ground. Look for strange people wearing a tabard and holding a clipboard. #itfc– ITFC Supporters Club (@ITSCofficial) March 29, 2019
Bartosz Bialkowski will be in goal with James Bree and Myles Kenlock the full-backs. Skipper Luke Chambers will be at centre-half alongside either Matthew Pennington or James Collins, who has been back in training after his calf injury.
Trevoh Chalobah could start in midfield having replaced Cole Skuse, who is 33 today, from the bench a fortnight ago, although the Bristolian is back in training after his ankle injury and is expected to be in the squad.
Teddy Bishop and Jon Nolan are likely to continue in the other midfield roles with Alan Judge and Gwion Edwards either side of Collin Quaner up front.
The Tigers will be without suspended Norwegian midfielder Markus Henriksen, but defender Jordy de Wijs and another midfielder Daniel Batty are available again after they recovered from illness and a back problem respectively.
Defender Ondrej Mazuch is back in full training, while midfielders Jon Toral and James Weir played for the Tigers’ U23s earlier this week.
Defender Angus MacDonald is the only member of the squad currently out of action having been diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis in November.
Manager Nigel Adkins believes his side are still in the hunt for a top-six place.
"I still honestly believe that we have a chance of getting into the play-offs,” he told the Tigers official site.
"Therefore Saturday is a big game for us and all of our positive energy and our mind-set is focused on that.
"It’s an important game for both teams and a draw won’t really be any good for either side. Both teams will be looking for the win.
"We go there knowing that Ipswich are on a run of form in terms of being undefeated, with six draws from their last seven games and that’s a fine line as to whether they could have won some of those games.
"The importance of the game is there for all to see, and it should be an exciting one for the supporters travelling down.
"We haven’t picked up points in our last couple of away games so we need to address that and be better. We have to be at it big time and there will be no complacency.
"We have to give everything that we’ve got during the final eight games and we’ve spoken to the players about it. We’ve asked them — ‘how many have played in the Premier League?’. It’s the place to be and we still have an opportunity. Yes, we are some points short at the moment but we have a chance.
"We know we have to go and win the game on Saturday but we have a good squad of players that is focussed and determined. We were bottom of the league in October with doom and gloom everywhere.
"We were tipped to be relegated — that hasn’t happened. Our energies are on what we’re trying to achieve and I’m looking to drive everybody on.
"We have an opportunity and I’m not prepared to let anybody take their foot off the gas. We need to try and seize our opportunity.”
Historically, Hull have the edge on the Blues having won 17 of the games between the teams (16 in the league), while Town have been victorious eight times (eight) and a further 11 (11) matches have been draws.
Hull have had a disappointing time of it on the road this season, winning just five times, drawing four and losing 10.
The Tigers are without a win in their last three matches, losing twice away, at Nottingham Forest, 3-0, and Norwich City, 3-2, and drawing 2-2 at home to QPR in their final game before the international break.
In September, Town continued their wait for their first win under Paul Hurst after goals at either end of the match saw Hull City to a 2-0 victory at the KCOM Stadium.
Jarrod Bowen struck after three minutes, then sub Jackson Irvine sealed the three points a minute from time with the Blues dropping to bottom of the table.
In March last year, Town failed to score for the fifth successive home game for the first time in their history as Hull City comfortably beat the Blues 3-0 at a fractious Portman Road with then-manager Mick McCarthy holding an impromptu meeting with his players on the pitch afterwards.
Town went close to opening the scoring early on when Jordan Spence hit the post on eight but went behind to Henriksen’s 25-yard strike in the 18th minute, Harry Wilson doubled the lead for the previously struggling Tigers on 40 and Jarrod Bowen completed the scoring two minutes after the break.
No one in the Hull squad has played for the Blues but ex-Town frontman and defender Richard Naylor coaches the U18s at their academy.
Striker Will Keane is on loan with the Blues from the Tigers and had he been fit would have been ineligible for the game.
Keane joined Hull from Manchester United in August 2016 and made 11 starts and 15 sub appearances, scoring once, in an injury-hit spell before moving to the Blues on loan in January.
🎥 | We have invited children from @EACH_hospices to join us as mascots at Portman Road tomorrow.
Yesterday, Paul Lambert and Matt Gill visited EACH to present the children with #itfc kits...
💙👇 pic.twitter.com/zTgMpuYTuJ– Ipswich Town FC (@IpswichTown) March 29, 2019
Saturday’s referee is John Brooks from Leicestershire, who has shown 118 yellow cards and five red in 32 games so far this season.
Brooks’s last Town match was the 2-2 draw at Birmingham City in September in which Pennington was given his marching orders for two bookable offences. Skuse was the only other player yellow-carded.
Brooks was last at Portman Road for the pre-season friendly against West Ham in which he booked only Jack Wilshere.
His only other competitive Town match was the 0-0 home draw with Sheffield United in March last year in which he yellow-carded Skuse and Stephen Gleeson as well as one Blade.
Squad from: Bialkowski, Gerken, Bree, Emmanuel, Spence, Kenlock, Pennington, Collins, Chambers (c), Knudsen, Nsiala, Skuse, Chalobah, Downes, Dozzell, Nolan, Bishop, El Mizouni, Edwards, Dawkins, Judge, Quaner, Jackson, Harrison.