IPSWICH and the three away matches which follow tomorrow’s trip to Portman Road are going to be a real test of Blackburn’s mettle.

Ipswich, Nottingham Forest, Millwall and Brighton are all going to be very, very tough games. None of them are easy.

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Yes Brighton have not had the best of starts, but it’s still a hard place to go to, and Millwall aren’t exactly flying either.

But the Den on a cold Tuesday night in November, I don’t think anyone would particularly look forward to that.

We have to take some points out of these games though, along with the ones at home to Birmingham and Reading.

If we don’t, we will see a gap starting to appear between us and the top six.

First and foremost, though, we must just concentrate on Ipswich.

They’re playing with lots of confidence so, for the first 20 to 30 minutes, we’ve got to shut up shop, try to keep the ball, try to keep a clean sheet, and quieten their crowd down because they will be expecting their side to win given the run they’re on.

We’ve got to think, ‘Right, we’re starting off with a point, and that’s the least we’ll be leaving with’.

And if we can keep Ipswich out, I always think we’ll be able to nick a goal.

It won’t be easy, though, because Ipswich are a good side with a very good manager.

I’ve always rated Mick McCarthy, he always seems to do a good job whatever club he is at, and he is an honest guy who gets the best out of his players.

Ipswich will be there or thereabouts come the end of the season and, despite our results before the international break, I still believe we can be too.

If we can get a result at Ipswich it would put everyone in a better frame of mind after three games without a win.

After two weeks off, the players should be refreshed and it should have given Gary Bowyer plenty of time to work on the training round and put right what has been going wrong and do a bit of tweaking here and there.

We’ve had some disappointing results but that is always going to happen at some stage of the season.

Hopefully the break will have done us good and the blip that we’ve had is out of the way now.