Boss Paul Lambert says Town have paid the price for a bad couple of months prior to football’s suspension due to the coronavirus crisis in March.
The Blues were the division’s early leaders but fell away dramatically in the period before Christmas, however, returned to the top in January. But they won just once in their final nine games before the season was brought to an early close.
Town were 10th in the table at that point but dropped to 11th, their lowest finish since 1952/53, under the unweighted points per game formula employed to settle the curtailed division.
"We had a bad couple of months before we stopped and we have the paid for that,” Lambert told the club site.
"We were top at the end of January but we lost key players to injury and for whatever reason - and I think it was a culmination of things - we didn’t kick on.
"We had five home games left and eight matches and we would probably have needed to win six of those to have had a chance of finishing in the top six.
"We would have been capable of that but it’s not to be. We’ve got to look at what we did right and what we did wrong and learn from the mistakes.
"It’s been a time over the last two months to look at ourselves, staff and players and I’ve done that. I always do. There are definitely things I would do differently now but we’ve all got to take it on the chin and put it right next season.”
Lambert has also reiterated his criticism of the EFL, the time it has taken to reach a decision on the future of League One and the points per game system.
"I think there has been a real lack of leadership at the top [of the EFL] and the whole thing has dragged on far too long,” he added.
"It’s been diabolical the way it has been handled. They were running out of time in the end to get the season played. I always felt that. Maybe that was in their thinking.
"There was still a lot of football to be played so I don’t agree with points per game at all. I always felt we had a good chance of making the play-offs but look at Peterborough, they were in the top six and are now are out of it. How can that be right?
"My big bug-bear though is that we have four divisions and two are playing and two are not. We either all play, or we all don’t. We are one game, playing in the same country but the disparity is shocking. Come on!”
Meanwhile, keeper-coach Jimmy Walker has tweeted his frustration at the season being cut short and admitted 11th was far from good enough.
Left me feeling very flat! Too much football left to guess 🤷â€â™‚ï¸wudve loved to play to a finish somehow.
Unacceptable league position from us @IpswichTown no matter how it ended🤯 given the chance we all owe the fans and everyone connected to the club a massive season next 🙌💙 https://t.co/yD6qUYvGp8– Jimmy Walker (@jimmywalker001) June 9, 2020