Middlesbrough v Ipswich: He’s beginning to feel like the world is against him, but Ipswich Town manager Paul Jewell remains upbeat about the future.

Following a summer of transfer frustration, the Blues boss heads into today’s game at Middlesbrough with just two centre-backs in one of the Championship’s most threadbare and inexperienced squads.

A renewed call for ‘patience’ has not gone down well among the club’s supporters following a decade of second tier mediocrity and little sign of progress in recent years.

However, Jewell believes the long-term picture is now a lot more rosy following his drastic change in recruitment policy from big name stars at the end of their careers to youngsters hungry to prove a point.

“We haven’t been sat here since Huddersfield just having a laugh, we’ve been trying to improve the squad,” said the Blues boss, responding to criticism surrounding his failure to bring in loan reinforcements this week.

“For some reason it just feels like the whole world is against us at times.

“Whenever it looks like we’re making progress with a player something happens, but we can’t feel sorry for ourselves because there are still 42 games left in this very tough and competitive league we’re in.”

He continued: “I was looking at our squad and we’ve got 24 pros and something like nine of them are under 21.

“The squad is quite inexperienced. We’ve got a couple of 30-somethings and the rest are at a decent age.

“We can’t just have a team full of young players, but I think they’ve shown in matches the matches so far that they belong here. The likes of Jack (Ainlsey). Ronan Murray, Massimo (Luongo) and Luke (Hyam); we think they’re going to be good players. I think the future is quite bright for Ipswich.

“We’ll go into the game against Middlesbrough with a positive attitude and feeling confident because we’ve done okay so far.

“Even against Blackpool (6-0 away defeat) we were well in the game up until half-time.”

– See today’s EADT for full match preview. Log on to www.greenun24.co.uk from 2pm today for a live and interactive match blog from the Riverside.