Defender Christophe Berra admits he is at a loss to explain the disparity between Town’s home and away results this season.

Mick McCarthy’s men have collected more points on their travels than at Portman Road — 20 compared to 14 — and Tuesday’s 2-1 win at Fulham was their fourth in a row in the league on the road, a feat last achieved in 2004 during Joe Royle’s time in charge.

Town go into Saturday’s visit from Derby County having won just once, against rock-bottom Bolton, in eight home games dating back to August and Scottish international Berra confessed: “I don’t know why we have not been winning at home.

“Four straight away wins is a good run at any level but especially in the Championship, where every game is difficult.

“We’ve been on a pretty good run recently but obviously a disappointing result against Middlesbrough, although for 60 minutes or so we were well in the game.

“We had a fair amount of chances before they scored. Their keeper made some good point-blank saves and in football it’s often a thin line between winning and losing.

“Sometimes it goes for you and sometimes it doesn’t. If we had got the first goal that night it would have been different. We would have sat back, suffered the pressure and they would have found it difficult to break us down.

“We didn’t, of course, so when we were behind we went in search of an equaliser and they caught us with a sucker punch for their second goal.

“That’s football for you and to be honest we would rather get beaten 2-0 or 3-0 than lose 1-0 and go down without a fight.

“It’s always good to get victories and when they come away from home it’s even sweeter. In our away games we have tended to score early and teams have found it difficult to break us down, which we’ve taken advantage of.

“We’ve only been beaten twice at home this season but we’ve had quite a few draws. Maybe it’s to do with expectations from last season, when we had such a really good home record.

“It’s not that we’re bad at home this season — we just need to turn the draws into victories — but our away record so far is a lot better than it was last season.

“With the strikers we have, plus Freddie on the wing, we can catch teams on the break when they come on to us at their place.

“There is more expectation at home and to be honest teams know we are a threat so when they come to Portman Road they know what we are going to do and maybe defend a bit more than they would at home.”

Berra turned in one of his best displays of the season at Craven Cottage but preferred to concentrate on the team as a whole. He added: “It was a really good team performance. We started the game really well and we maybe could have been two or three up because we were right on the front foot.

“They equalised through Ross McCormack, a quality finish from about 40 yards, then in the second half we started well again and Brett scored. It wasn’t until the last 20 minutes that they started to put us under a lot of pressure.

“They brought on the big centre-forward [Matt Smith] and were getting good deliveries into our box from both normal play and set plays. We really had to defend as a team and everyone played a part in us earning all three points.”

Photo: Action Images

TR11BLU added 06:07 - Dec 18 The clue is in our fixture list, we have played most of the top teams at home and the bottom half teams away. I think it is likely we will finish 8th or 9th (hope Im wrong) and our results at the end of the season may well reflecvt that those above us tended to better us in games. Off the top of my head I believe we have only beaten Burnley, of the teams above us.
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BlueBadger added 06:57 - Dec 18 Ironically, I think that a draw tomorrow would probably be a good result.
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muccletonjoe added 10:03 - Dec 18 I would settle for a draw. But a win would be a massive boost.
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Stato added 10:18 - Dec 18 Agree with posts above but having dropped so many home points we have put ourselves in a position where only a win will keep us on track for the play offs. Is it too early in the season to call it a 6 pointer ?
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BackTheBlues added 10:24 - Dec 18 I think we need a little more positivity here... yes we've beaten the lesser teams of late - but we've still beat them. 2 losses in 10 isn't bad at all - more importantly 4 wins in 5. I would take 5 points out the next 9 - but imagine getting 6 or 7. The other thing is... Do our fans really think there are 6 better teams in the league than us? Top 4 will be the top 4 I think - but Burnley are going to wobble and the teams below us are not better than us in my opinion. 6th place will be an achievement with the money spent in our league this year - and maybe play offs will be bettered. Remember Burley's era - always the bridesmaids until that wonderful year!

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Keaneish added 10:55 - Dec 18 Its going to be nip and tuck tomorrow but i'm going to stick my neck out and back us for a 2-nil win but to do that i think we'll need Bru in the centre of midfield.
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afrodids added 12:55 - Dec 18 I know why we draw so many games it's because of instead of going for a second or third goal we sit back as Berra himself said and invitie pressure instead of controlling the game like Boro did to us. We are not george Grahams Arsenal and are not good enough to play this negative tactic. It's not rocket science and it's the difference between now and the Burley era (as an example). I think we'll beat Derby tbh. more positivity please MM stop this sit back and defend nonsense as soon as we go in front, just got to look at the mk dons game as an example of this lucky to get away with the 3 points in the end.

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