Ipswich Town are destined for automatic promotion – according to popular computer game ‘Football Manager’.

The game, which allows users to play at being a virtual boss, has become an addictive past-time for many a football fan over the past two decades.

And now the makers have used it to simulate the remainder of the current season for both the Premier League and the Championship.

Mick McCarthy’s men claim eight wins, seven draws and four defeats from their final 19 matches to finish second in the Championship standings – two points behind champions Bournemouth and eight points ahead of third-place Norwich.

Middlesbrough, Watford and Derby fill the rest of the play-off places, with Blackburn and Cardiff just missing out.

Blues striker Daryl Murphy ends the campaign as the division’s top-scorer with 27 goals, four ahead of the Cherries’ Callum Wilson and five in front of Derby’s Chris Martin.

A synopsis reports that none of the January transfers in the Championship make a major impact, although Noel Hunt and Freddie Sears make decent cameo appearances to help the Blues.

A Football Manager spokesperson explained: “To ensure the simulations were as accurate as possible, the team fully updated the Premier League and Championship seasons to reflect the events of the season so far in the real world.

“To begin with, this meant adding in the full set of results up to and including New Year’s Day, as well as the fully accurate set of remaining fixtures. The real-life injuries and suspensions for each of the 44 teams were then added to the simulation so that the virtual Wengers and Mourinhos would have the same squad selection dilemmas as their real-world counterparts.

“Next, all teams were updated with the loan and transfer deals up to and including January 16, as were those potential transfers which have been heavily speculated about in national and regional media.

“Finally, adjustments were made to individual player and team reputations, morale and abilities to reflect how they have performed in real life thus far this season – so players like Harry Kane, for example, received a slight boost in their ability stats whereas Wigan, who have been performing below expectations so far, were given slightly lower ratings for morale and reputation.

“To ensure that the final league table was as accurate as could be, each set of fixtures was played through three times, with the most representative result taken for each game.”