Carlos Edwards insists that Saturday’s 3-0 defeat at Brighton, on the back of four straight victories, is only a blip.

However, he is wary of any complacency setting in, to avoid sliding back down towards the relegation zone – for the moment, Town remain 12 points clear of the bottom three.

“We don’t want this season to slip,” explained Edwards.

“We’ve been on a good run, and we don’t want to get sucked back down into the relegation battle anymore.

“Today was just a minor setback. We still have much to play for, but we must not lose sight of the fact there are teams fighting for survival, and they can go on a run also.

“I don’t think it is right to say that we fell back into our bad old ways today. It was not that bad.

“It’s just one game we have lost in five. We just weren’t firing on all cylinders, but positives did come out of the game. There were a lot of positives out there.

“I don’t think today was a reality check. You just win some and you lose some.

“Obviously with the run we had been on, we all had high expectations to continue this run, but who is to say that we cannot go on another unbeaten run again?” added Edwards.

The experienced Edwards delivered another man-of-the-match performance in an otherwise below-par Town display at the impressive Amex Stadium.

The 33-year-old right-back is playing as well now, as at any other time in his Town career, and he reiterated his desire to stay at Portman Road beyond this summer, when his current contract expires, following Saturday’s defeat in Sussex.

“There has been no news on my contract, we’re still dealing with it,” confirmed Edwards.

“Obviously the manager (Paul Jewell) has had a few words with me, he always does, but we don’t really go into details.

“I would love to stay, and I want to stay at Ipswich. Hopefully it will be resolved sooner rather than later.”

Edwards did admit that individual mistakes cost Town dearly, against a ruthless Brighton team. The visitors’ defence was exposed all too easily.

“It was a disappointing afternoon, having come back from four games undefeated,” continued Edwards.

“We obviously came here with high expectations, but all credit to Brighton, they are a decent team.

“We still have a lot to give thanks for, because we created chances, it’s just unfortunate that we didn’t defend them well.

“I think it was mistakes from us, rather than just poor defending.

“If you look at the first two goals – taking away the third one because we were chasing the game by then – it was slight mistakes that were our downfall. It would have been a much different score-line without those.

“I thought we had cut out those mistakes (recently), but we all have one or two mistakes in us, regardless of where you are in the league and how you’ve been doing in games.

“You have to try to eliminate those slight mistakes, because they can win you and lose you games. It cost us today.”