Ipswich Town manager Paul Cook says he's happy to sacrifice a bit of defensive solidity in the pursuit of more goals.

Troy Parrott capitilising on an error early was enough to secure 1-0 home win against Plymouth at the weekend and move the Blues back into the League One play-off places heading into their final 13 matches.

The Blues have the sixth best record in the division in terms of goals conceded, but have comfortably the worst ratio of goals scored and created per game among the promotion contenders.

Indeed, they've now gone five games without scoring a goal of their own creation from open play.

Speaking ahead of this evening's game at 14th place Fleetwood (7.45pm ko), new Blues boss Cook, who has a record of W1 D1 L1 since taking charge, said: "Management is tough nowadays because you get judged so quickly. We haven't really been training with the lads who have been starting. It's more been video analysis and technical stuff.

"I saw some really good stuff in the first 20 minutes (against Plymouth). I was really pleased with us. I thought we looked so much better going forwards.

"I think when you want to be better going forwards you're going to leave more gaps at the back. That's something we're going over to see if we can get the balance right over the run-in.

"There's 13 games left to go - why haven't we got a good chance?"

Fleetwood sacked Joey Barton at the start of the year and replaced him with Simon Grayson. The Lancashire side sit 14th in the table but go into tonight's game on the back of a five game unbeaten run which includes wins against Lincoln, Shrewsbury and Gillingham.

"I've seen bits of them previously under Joey, but I haven't seen a lot of them under Simon," admitted Cook. "We'll watch them and look at all the data we can get.

"It's just about getting the lads fresh and making sure they can go again. We've got three away games now, so the travelling and the rest is massively important.

"I think we're down to 13 games now. There are plenty of teams in with a good shout and we're one of them. That's what we've got to stay strong with."

After tonight's long trip back from the north west, Town travel to two of Cook's former clubs - Portsmouth on Saturday, then Wigan the following weekend.

Next week will be the first time Cook will have a proper chance to work with the players since arriving during the midst of relentless Saturday-Tuesday action.

"I'll give everyone four days off!" quipped the Blues boss, when asked if he was looking forward to that.

"I think Marcus (Evans) will go mad won't he? He'll say 'you promised you were going to work them hard!' No, look, I think everyone is delighted we have jumped into the play-off places - it's great for our supporters and it's great for the players' confidence.

"But there's a lot of hard work to be done and we're going to try and do it."