Preview: Town – Brum

Town will be looking to start the festive fixtures off with a win tomorrow afternoon against Alex McLeish's Birmingham City at Portman Road.

Town will be able to include Owen Garvan and Ben Thatcher following their return from suspension. David Wright is a doubt with a hamstring injury while Alex Bruce is still suspended.

Town manager Jim Magilton: "I'm looking forward to the Birmingham game and so are my players, we know we need to perform at home and there is no better game to do it than on Boxing Day against a team that has Premier League quality in it. We played Birmingham a couple of years ago and beat them 1-0 at our place so a repeat of that performance would be very welcome.

"Birmingham beat us at their place last month and Alex told me that they played their best 30 minutes since he has been in charge against us, which is just our luck.

"They have a lot of quality in their team but we go into the game with confidence coming back into the side.

"Steve Foley and myself watched Coventry play at Charlton on a horrible night a couple of weeks ago and after watching them we thought that the set up we used at the Ricoh Arena would allow us some fluidity.

"It worked well and encouraged us to get players on the ball and that helped the confidence flow back into the side, although we know there is more to come from us.

"Everything that is spoken about Kevin (Phillips) is richly deserved. He is an outstanding individual and a wonderful team player by all accounts, I would have liked him here when it was clear he was going to leave West Brom in the summer but he was out of our range.

"We kept him quiet when he came to Portman Road with West Brom last season and we need to repeat that on Boxing Day and then look to play our own brand of football."

Birmingham will be looking to bounce back from the defeat against Reading last week. Alex McLeish will be able to call upon the services of Liam Ridgewell after he completed his suspension. Sebastian Larsson is doubt with a groin injury.

Birmingham manager McLeish said: "We've got to get into gear and Ipswich is the next target.

"They say that titles can be won at lost at this time of year and we've got to get back on track.

"But certainly, the boys in that dressing room, they have done well in amassed the 47 points, they have showed the character, showed the spirit. And they are hurting.

"We lost to a team who are going to be up there, and I believe we are going to be up there fighting with them to get back to the Premier League too."

"Of course it would have been nice going into the Boxing Day encounter with Ipswich with a victory.

"But it never happened, and you have to keep a sense of reality about the whole thing.

"That result has to be put to the back of our minds now and we have to move forward with it and get better at certain things, like set-pieces for instance, where we've conceded a few goals this season.

''That's not acceptable, there's been too many."

But McLeish refused to write off his team and said: "When we were six points ahead of Reading, I never said it was between two teams then, why should it be now?"

"People get carried away with the point's gap. It's only two that separates us. If Reading draw and we win, we're back neck-and-neck.

"Wolves were ahead of us before the weekend because they'd won three more games than us and we had drawn the three.

"It can be easily overcome. There is a tendency to over-exaggerate the points difference. When it's three for a win, it's nothing.

"Of course the defeat was a blow, and I don't take them easily. Neither do the players.

"I'm disappointed we haven't added to 47 points. That was kind of acceptable on the 23-game margin. Now we're into the 24, 25 and it's still 47.

"It's a fantastic tally Kevin Phillips has got for us so far, 11, he's a superb finisher as we saw again on Saturday.

"But we need goals from other areas of the team. The other strikers and the midfield.

"We need to start getting in among the goals. We haven't really done that this season and you can't keep relying on the defence to keep them out.

"I don't care who scores, even if we have got contributors smashing defenders about and keeping things alive for us in the last third, then other players will score."

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