Boss Mick McCarthy doubts any of the expensively assembled sides Town face between now and the end of February will be looking forward to their games against the Blues.

McCarthy’s team, which has been put together on a relative shoestring, faces Derby at Portman Road tomorrow, Reading at home on Saturday before visits to Aston Villa and Brighton, a home game against Leeds and then the East Anglian derby at Norwich. All six are currently ahead of the 14th placed Blues in the Championship table.

“We’ve got them all coming up and I can’t imagine any of them are thinking ‘Hip, hip, hooray, we’re going to play against Ipswich’ just because we haven’t got as big a wage bill as they have. That’s not going to happen,” McCarthy said.

“They know they’re going to get a really competitive game. We can put the brakes on a few. Let’s hope we do, or it can do some damage to us.

“They’ll be looking at it in exactly the same way, to beat us. I think we’ve got some great games for us, I think games where we’re not expected just to turn up and win.

“When we get the ones that are in and around us and below us here it’s a bit like, ‘We should win that’, not from us, but I get that feeling [from some].

“Maybe the games coming up here and the ones [over the next] month, they make all of us work that little bit harder to get the points we need.”

McCarthy says he relishes giving those with greater resources a bloody nose: “It’s always a challenge and it makes it a little bit tougher but it also makes it a lot more pleasurable when you beat them.”

This morning, the signing of free agent centre-half Steven Taylor, 31, put pen to paper on his deal to the end of the season, although the former Newcastle and Portland Timbers man won’t be available until his international clearance comes through, which is likely to be later in the week.

“I’m hoping if he plays he’s going to be a brilliant signing, of course, and hugely important,” McCarthy said. “We’ll see.

“He was - and I’m hoping he still is - a top defender when he was at Newcastle and been in and around England squads, he was a terrific defender.”

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