Ipswich still have 'massive confidence' - O'Shea

Ipswich Town will not allow the belief to be "sucked out of them" after their impressive run of form was ended by a 3-1 defeat at Sheffield United, according to captain Dara O'Shea.

Town had taken 16 points from their six previous Championship games, and won seven of the past 10, prior to their visit to Bramall Lane.

"It's easy to be a good team when things are going well - when things aren't going well that's when we need to buckle up and take a bit of ownership ourselves," skipper O'Shea told BBC Radio Suffolk.

"There's still massive confidence in the group and we don't want to let other people suck that out of us. We know we're doing well and we've just got to keep doing more of that.

"Away games are always going to be harder. We love playing at Portman Road, it's a great feeling having our fans there. When you come to stadiums like this [Bramall Lane] that have so much character, so much noise, we've got to silence the crowd early and control it like we do at home."

Ipswich are third in the table, five points off the automatic promotion places, and will be at home to Preston North End on Saturday.

"It's easy for teams to play against us in a way because they're not maybe expected to get a result and that's the pressure we've got to take on," added centre-back O'Shea.

"Teams are going to come and disrupt us, they're going to make it difficult, it's not going to be easy, it's going to be unpredictable at times.

"You watch (videos of) games throughout the week of the team you've got to play against and then come the weekend they play in a totally different way because they're playing against Ipswich. That's the nature of the league."