Blues legend Terry Butcher says Town need to appoint a new permanent manager very quickly because “this lot need sorting out big-time”.
The former Blues and England skipper was at last night's dismal 2-0 FA Cup defeat working as a pundit for ITV4.
After the game a fuming Butcher said: "Well, [CEO] Mark Ashton has got to get a manager in very, very quickly because this lot need sorting out big-time.
"That's two games against Barrow, a League Two club, and no goals. Ipswich are conceding goals left, right and centre and they don't look like scoring any. So there is a lot of work to do.
"It's a long journey home for the players and then it's Sunderland on Saturday. Then it's Gillingham away, Wycombe at home and Lincoln at home. There are some big games coming up.
"It's their futures. They have got to know that a manager is looking at them and he may be making decisions on one or two based on that performance. That simply wasn't good enough.
Quizzed on what calibre of manager Town can attract, Butcher reflected: "It doesn't matter about them being the right calibre. We just need a guy to come in and rumble them up and just say 'Look, you are playing for your futures here, you may be on good money, you may be at a big club’.
"But we're not a big club anymore. We're a small club really when you think about how far we've sunk.
"You can talk about this and that in the past, but it's not the past that matters. It's the present. And the present at the moment isn't good enough.”
Looking ahead to Saturday and the unveiling of the statue of Butcher’s boyhood hero and then later friend and team-mate Kevin Beattie, he added: "It will be [a great occasion]. I don't know what The Beat would make of this, I'll tell you that now.
"He normally used to forecast a 3-1 win for Ipswich Town every game [on BBC Radio Suffolk's Life’s a Pitch], but we'd be lucky to concede just one at the minute and and we certainly wouldn't be scoring three playing like that. So yes, he wouldn't be happy.”