Town could return to the top of League One at Portman Road on Tuesday if they record their first ever league win against Cambridge United, who inflicted boss Kieran McKenna’s only home league defeat in last season’s corresponding fixure.
The Blues, now the division’s top scorers having netted 22 times in their 11 matches, go into the game second in the table, a point behind Plymouth, who have a tough match against third-placed Sheffield Wednesday at Home Park the same night.
Cambridge are 10th, having slipped down the table in recent weeks. When the fixture was initially meant to be played in mid-September - the game was postponed as a mark of respect following the death of Queen Elizabeth - the U’s were fifth in the table.
They have lost three of their last four in the league including Saturday’s 2-0 home defeat to Derby County.
Away from the Abbey Stadium, the U’s have won one - a 2-1 victory at Morecambe 10 days ago - drawn one and lost three.
But Blues boss Kieran McKenna, whose side are again set to be watched by a big Portman Road crowd with almost 26,000 tickets sold, knows all too well that the U’s will be no soft touch and believes head coach Mark Bonner has assembled an impressive group of players over the last few seasons.
"Difficult game, of course. We know it’s a difficult game because they were the last team to beat us here in the league,” he said following Saturday’s 3-2 victory over Portsmouth.
"The’ve got a good squad, good talented young individuals who they recruited very well when they’re in League Two and have now climbed with the team and I know have and will have interest from clubs at the very top of this league and in the league above because they have very good individuals.
"They have a very good coach, they’re well-coached, well-drilled, difficult to break down, have a good counter-attacking threat, all the things that made it such a difficult game last year and what’s going to make it a difficult game this year.
"I’ve told the players to enjoy this evening, rest up well tomorrow but come tomorrow it has to be all eyes on Cambridge.”
Last week Championship Rotherham United were reported to have made an approach for Bonner, who opted instead to remain at the Abbey Stadium.
"I don’t follow the speculation too much, so I haven’t seen that,” McKenna added. "But he’s a young manager who has done very well with Cambridge and I’m sure in that instance there would be interest from elsewhere. But Cambridge is a good club as well and I’m sure he’s focused on his job there.”
McKenna, who has no new injuries to contend with, is unlikely to make too many changes from the team which beat Pompey with Christian Walton in goal and the back three again set to be Janoi Donacien, Luke Woolfenden and George Edmundson.
Leif Davis and Wes Burns are likely to be the wing-backs with skipper Sam Morsy again partnered by Lee Evans in central midfield.
McKenna may look to freshen things among his forwards with Freddie Ladapo perhaps starting as the lone frontman for Tyreece John-Jules having netted this third goal in three games at the weekend, his first league goal at Portman Road. But Conor Chaplin and Marcus Harness could well keep their places as the number 10s.
Cambridge boss Bonner, whose side were 14th last season, their first year back in League One, expects to find a Town team with their tails up and aiming to build on Saturday’s win.
"They’re in high spirits, in terms of Ipswich’s team and results, and I’m sure they’ll want to continue their good momentum at home,” he told Cambridgeshire Live.
"For us, we just want to try and keep getting competitive performances against the best teams, because that’s the foundation to getting any points, and that’s where we’ve got to start off to begin with.
"There are no dramas really where we are. We’ve probably got the results from the games that we thought we would in the main, and found it difficult in some of the other ones. It probably shapes out as we thought it might do at this point.
"We go into the next little batch of games knowing we’re in for a really tough month, but one that we want to see how many points we can get against these top teams, because overall that’s where we want to be more competitive against them
"You know you’re in for a tough night, but it’s really hard not to be excited about it because what a game to go and play in.
"I think the players loved it last year when they went there, we’ll have 2,000 away fans there, it’ll be a brilliant atmosphere, so bring it on, let’s see what we can do.”
Reflecting on what expects to see from Town, he added: "They’re a possession dominant team, they dominate the game often with seven players in their attacks.
"They try and build from the goalkeeper with six, they try and disconnect you as a team. They love attacking in wide areas at the minute, against back fours particularly, but have lots of bodies centrally and two number tens that want to play through you.
"They’re very fluid in the way that they play, no one knows whether they play 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3, 3-4-3 or 3-4-2-1. They’ve got huge variety in how they play, it’s more about spaces and principles rather than systems.
"They’re very well coached and they’ve got a good understanding in that sense, and they’ve got excellent individuals. In all of those areas, they’ll be very good.
"We have to try and find some weaknesses that we can exploit and do them really well, but we’ll have to be incredibly well organised in order to handle what they’ve got.
"It’ll be a tough night if they play at their very best and they find their top tempo, but our aim is to try and disrupt that as much as we can and to try and carry our own threat, and see if we can get some control of it.”
Town have only met Cambridge competitively on seven occasions with the Blues winning twice, the U’s three times and with two games ending in draws.
The Blues have never beaten Cambridge in a league fixture with the U's having a 100 per cent winning record from the two matches at Portman Road, while the two Abbey Stadium meetings have been draws.
Other than last season, the clubs had previously only met in the league during Town’s 1991/92 Second Division promotion campaign.
The Blues' only wins against Cambridge were back in 1993/94 in the League Cup when they won 2-1 at Portman Road and 2-0 at the Abbey Stadium.
In April, manager McKenna’s unbeaten home record with the Blues came to an end as under par Town were beaten 1-0 by Cambridge.
Dominic Thompson’s own goal in the 56th minute won the points for the U’s, although the Blues, whose play-off push was effectively ended, had a late goal disallowed for offside.
In October last year, Joe Ironside scored an 88th-minute leveller as the U’s came from two goals behind to draw 2-2 with the Blues at the Abbey Stadium.
Town looked to be coasting to victory after Sone Aluko had netted on 10 and 36, his first Blues goals, but James Brophy pulled one back for the U’s before half-time and the home side completed a deserved comeback when Ironside headed home two minutes from the end.
The Cambridge squad includes ex-Blue Jack Lankester, who joined them in the summer of 2021 from Town.
Lankester, a boyhood Blues fan, came through the academy ranks at Playford Road and went on to make 13 first-team starts and 17 sub appearances, scoring three goals.
Centre-half or midfielder Paul Digby moved to Town from Barnsley in January 2016 before making the switch permanent the following summer. He made a total of seven starts and five sub appearances without scoring.
Cambridge midfielder Shilow Tracey, who moved to the Abbey after being released by Spurs in June 2021, had a trial at Town in 2015 when a 17-year-old with Ebbsfleet United's academy and featured for the Blues’ U21s.
Town midfielder Dominic Ball spent a spell on loan with Cambridge in the second half of 2014/15, making nine starts and two sub appearances.
Blues striker Joe Pigott, who is on loan for the season at Portsmouth, spent 2016/17 on loan with the U’s, scoring once in nine starts and eight sub appearances.
Midfielder Idris El Mizouni, currently on loan at Leyton Orient, has had two spells on loan at Cambridge, the first more successful stint in the second half of the curtailed 2019/20 season and the second in the first half of the following campaign. In total, the Tunisian international made 12 starts and 10 sub appearances for the U’s, scoring one goal.
Saturday’s referee is Robert Lewis from Shrewsbury, who has shown 29 yellow cards and one red in eight games so far this season.
Lewis’s last Town game was the 2-1 defeat at Plymouth in October last year in which he booked Edmundson, Morsy, Chaplin, Toto Nsiala and one Pilgrim.
Prior to that, he was in charge of the 0-0 draw at Rochdale in April last year in which he yellow-carded only Blues loanee Josh Harrop, the last game prior to the Gamechanger 20 takeover.
He was also in charge of the 2-0 home victory over Accrington Stanley in October earlier that season in which he booked Luke Chambers and Cameron Burgess, who was then with the Lancastrians.
Before that he took charge of the 1-1 draw at Wycombe Wanderers on New Year’s Day 2020 when he cautioned only Luke Woolfenden and James Wilson.
Squad from: Walton, Hladky, Donacien, Woolfenden, Edmundson, Keogh, Burns, Vincent-Young, Davis, Morsy (c), Evans, Ball, Harness, Edwards, Humphreys, Chaplin, John-Jules, Ladapo, Jackson.