Blues boss Paul Cook says the week of intensive training got off to a good start on Monday but admitted that Tuesday was more low key than he would have wanted.
The week is the first midweek since Cook took over that Town haven’t had a Tuesday game and he has been looking forward to getting the chance to instil his ideas at Playford Road over a number of days.
"We’ve tried to do three days, we wanted to cram [as much as we could] into a week, we were doing three double sessions, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” he explained.
"We trained really well on Monday, we did train really well, but obviously then through the modern-day sports science, the reaction to the players, the players probably weren’t strong enough to train again the second day like they did the first day, and that was really, really disappointing.
"There’s nothing you can do about that, there’s nothing I can do, so we had to have a bit more of a down day yesterday. So as you can imagine, we’re going to go for it again today.”
What can be realistically be achieved in such a short period? "Win on Saturday, that’s realistic. That’s what I want to achieve, that’s what all Ipswich Town fans want to achieve.
"We’ve got a large hill to climb, of you like, and we can take our first steps on Saturday by winning the game at Wigan.”
Normally an intensive few days’ training with a new manager might include some element of team binding, however, given the current limitations imposed by the pandemic there will be none of that.
"Team bonding is right up my street guys, let me tell you. Right up my street!” Cook laughed. "For these lads and Ipswich, it’s been very much a tough period of time, hasn’t it? I know from the fans, I’ve watched from afar what’s gone on and the reality is that we’ve all got to let the past go. We must concentrate on having a bright future.
"As a manager I can’t come on here threatening players, threatening this, people want to see actions. Even from my interviews now, it’s important.
"Our fans can only know two things. We are working very, very hard to get better and going forward we will get better. That’s two things I do know.”