Skipper Luke Chambers has suggested Town’s lack of success against the leading sides in League One could be attributed in part to their own naivety.
Since their relegation to the third tier of English football, Town have struggled to take points from sides in the top 10 of the league table. Their record in those games — played 25, won three and just 18 points from a possible 75 — makes for depressing reading.
Chambers said: "It’s not what we want it to be but we find ourselves joint-second in the league and obviously goal difference plays a part in that.
"We need to score more goals and we need to keep more goals out. There are so many clichés I could sit here and say but it’s pretty obvious what we need to do and that’s beat someone in and around the top six.”
Asked what he thought the issue had been, he replied: "I’ll leave that one for other people to talk about. I just feel at times we have tried to go all out at the start, maybe, and not had as solid a base as we maybe could have had. As a team, maybe being a bit naïve at times, I suppose.”
Chambers said he understands supporters’ frustration, adding: "I think they are well within their rights to be disappointed with some of our performances, maybe, but we are where we are in the league. Despite the injuries we have had we are still in a pretty good position, given what we have had to deal with.
"Compared to where we have been as a football club over the years, it’s not where anyone wants to be, so I can understand the pent-up frustration at the moment.
"We all want to be winning games week in, week out, beating every other team in the league, being the best team, being top etc. But sometimes football doesn’t work as easily as that.”
Chambers, who has been at Portman Road since the summer of 2012, has been on the receiving end of some stinging criticism in recent seasons and appreciates that fans are becoming increasingly annoyed at the club’s decline, which started well before he arrived on the scene.
He continued: "I’ve been here for a lot of that time and it’s difficult. How do you talk about it? You can’t really say too much about it, apart from the fact that you just have to keep going.
"As players, as a squad, we’ve just got to keep trying to produce the goods when it matters. We haven’t done that against the so-called big teams in the league, as we’d like to have done, but we still find ourselves joint second somehow.
"People will mention my name in a difficult period for the club, which doesn’t sit great with me. I’m just a number in the organisation and you can apportion some blame towards me as captain.
"But I’m big enough to stand up and take it on the chin. I’ve had criticism for my performances in the past but that’s football in general and I don’t think anyone is immune to that.
"All I can do, and all I ever have done, is to try to be the best player I can be for the club and the best person to try to take the club forward in a positive manner.
"We’ve got another opportunity and we still find ourselves in a really good position in the league to still achieve something this year.”
Despite a horrendous injury record over the first few months of the season, Town are approaching the half-way stage within touching distance of leaders Hull, as one of four teams only two points worse off, and cannot be written off as promotion contenders, especially with so many leading players due to return over the second half of the campaign.
Chambers said: "Promotion has always been the aim. We just need to keep going and keep grinding out the results, which I thought we did in a different way against Burton on Tuesday.
"I said to the boys after the game ‘Regardless of who you beat you have to enjoy those moments’ because it seems there aren’t too many positives around at the minute in our own little bubble in the dressing room.
"It’s credit to the group that we keep going. We found a way to win on Tuesday night and Burton had some decent form — unbeaten in four — coming into the game.
"They were no pushover. I know you can look at the league table and think we should be slapping teams like that, but we all know well enough by now that football doesn’t work like that and hasn’t done for a long time.”
Chambers also provided an explanation for an incident that occurred during last week’s home clash with Portsmouth when supporters were allowed to return to Portman Road for the first time in nine months.
Social media was buzzing with reports of what had allegedly taken place and Chambers was happy to provide his side of the story. "Someone was screaming at me and I just told him to stop shouting my name. To anyone who thinks I had an argument or abused a supporter, I didn’t. What more can I say?
"We live in a world where there is a lot of disinformation and there’s not much I want to add, to be honest. I think I’ve been playing long enough for people to know that when people chuck stuff at me there isn’t much of it that has stuck.”