Town goalkeeper Tomas Holy is chasing a new personal best after keeping a clean sheet in each of his last three games — the goalless draws at home to Northampton and Oxford plus Tuesday’s excellent 1-0 win at Hull, a run that he believes has boosted team morale.
The man from the Czech Republic kept five on the spin soon after the start of last season as the Blues won 5-0 at Bolton, defeated Shrewsbury 3-0 and drew 0-0 at home to Doncaster — tomorrow’s opponents at Portman Road — before winning 1-0 on the road at both MK Dons and Gillingham.
"That is the best record of my football career so far and that’s what I want to beat right now,” said the 29-year-old, who is officially the joint third tallest keeper in the world. At 2.06 metres or 6ft 9ins, he is only beaten for height by Kristof van Hout of Belgian club Westerlo, who is one inch taller, and the Dane, Simon Bloch Jorgensen, who played only once for Accrington Stanley and is now with Waltham Abbey of the Isthmian League South Central Division, who measures up at 2.10 metres or 6ft 10.5ins.
Asked how happy he was with his current form, he added: "Honestly, I am very happy with my form right now, especially last Saturday against Oxford and then at Hull on Tuesday. Apart from some of my goal-kicks, of course, because at Hull there were three or four in a row that I kicked really badly.
"It was as if I had a bit of a blackout. But the rest of the game was good and overall I am feeling very confident about my performances. Hopefully, I will show it again tomorrow against Doncaster if I’m picked in the starting XI. I want to keep this run of form going for as long as possible.
"I am trying to work on my kicking in training. I’m not going to lie — it’s not every single day, but as often as I can during this busy time with games every Saturday and Tuesday for some weeks to come.
"I know it’s something I need to work on and everybody has seen it before. I feel I have improved a little bit and confidence also plays a part. I am quite happy with my last two performances and if I’m honest that doesn’t happen all the time.”
The former Gillingham number one, now in his second season with Town, believes the midweek success on Humberside could be a major turning point in the current campaign.
Although they dropped down as far as 12th place in League One and are now two places higher, the Blues have games in hand on six of the clubs above, including two on ninth-placed Charlton and three on former leaders Hull, who now sit third.
Holy continued: "In my opinion the win at Hull was not just one of the best of the season but one of the best in all my time at Ipswich. I think we were more in control of the game at Hull than we were in the game at home to Oxford.
"We were more effective and more direct when we were going forward, but at the same time we were more disciplined and responsible in defence.
"Every single one of the boys did his bit throughout the game and that’s why we were successful as a team. We defended from the front and as a team, and when we got forward we always carried a threat and were dangerous.
"The football we played was very simple but it was also effective and I think that was the key. Sometimes less is more.”
Holy said that finally securing a victory over one of the leading League One sides, a rare achievement over the past two seasons, had worked wonders for confidence.
"We finally know we can beat one of the leading sides in the league and we now believe we can beat anyone,” he admitted.
"I don’t see any reason why we can’t continue on this run. In my opinion we now have two games, against Doncaster tomorrow and at Accrington on Tuesday, which we can win. Right now they are the most important games of the season.
"If we can get four, or in the best case scenario six, points we will be very much back in the mix and I can’t see any reason why we can’t win them both.
"These two games against Doncaster and Accrington are huge but of course we have to take it game by game.
"We are 100 per cent fully focused on Saturday and the best way we can prepare for the trip to Accrington is to collect three points from Doncaster.
"If we keep doing what we have been doing in our last two games there is no reason why we can’t get three points from each of our next two.”