IBRAHIMA Sonko has told his Town team-mates to only look up after opening a 10-point gap between themselves and the bottom three.

The current Ipswich skipper knows that a couple of defeats could see his side slip straight back into the dogfight.

But after consecutive wins against West Ham and Coventry City, Sonko believes some of the pressure has been lifted off Paul Jewell’s men ahead of the visit of Middlesbrough on Saturday.

Sonko said: “Rather than look back, we need to carry on chasing the teams in front of us and try to move forward.

“Now we have got a couple of results on the bounce, it has made us smile a bit more and made us a little more relaxed.”

While surprised at the 5-1 scoreline against the Hammers, Sonko maintained that the side’s first victory in eight games had been coming.

He explained: “We feel we had been playing well for about five or six games, but we had been unlucky and we made some mistakes.

“It was due and had you asked any of us could we beat West Ham, every single one of the players would have said we could. We know we can beat any one on our day.”

Despite giving away a penalty against Coventry, Sonko believes Saturday’s late winner over the Sky Blues has increased the air of confidence.

But with the loan window open again, Sonko needs to improve after going from the side’s lucky mascot to a calamitous figure in Town’s fragile defence in recent weeks.

High-profile mistakes against Leeds and then Coventry has dented the 31-year-old’s confidence and Jewell is expected to bring in a new centre-back following yesterday’s opening of the loan window.

While it initially looked like Tommy Smith would be the one most at threat, the New Zealand international has impressed more than Sonko in recent games.

Jewell missed out on signing defender Danny Higginbottom at the end of last month but another interesting proposition would be the return of the Stoke man’s team mate Danny Collins.

The Welsh international had a productive three-month loan spell in Suffolk earlier this season and it would be a massive surprise if he didn’t look to again leave the Britannia Stadium after seeing any chance of a permanent move fall through last month.

Sonko’s best form came with Collins alongside him and Jewell could be tempted to pair the duo up again.

Town have also been continually linked with a loan move for former defender Titus Bramble, now at Sunderland.