Paul Jewell is feeling the pain.

But arguably his most pressing concern – shoring up his leaky defence – is a priority that he will have little chance of focusing on over the international break.

Three of his preferred back four – David Stockdale, Danny Collins and Carlos Edwards – have a brief respite from Town’s defensive woes when their thoughts turn to their countries over the next two weeks.

This doesn’t make Jewell’s job any easier as he looks to stem the torrent of sloppy goals that has proved so costly this season.

The humiliating defeats against Southampton and Peterborough were put down to the fact that Jewell had no depth in his defence.

But after the introduction of Ibrahima Sonko and Collins appeared to revitalise both the back four and the whole team, the problems have resurfaced of late.

Jewell has not been helped by a woeful injury record in his defence, the manager already using 10 different defenders across the four positions.

But the simple fact is that only Doncaster, who ironically hit three past Ipswich at Portman Road on Saturday, have a worse defensive record than the fragile Blues.

This is not just a problem with the back four, indeed the lack of defensive cover coming from the midfield has been startling of late.

Jewell, who has less than two weeks to find some solutions before the daunting trip to Nottingham Forest, said: “It makes the international break seem even longer when you’ve lost.

“If you come to our training ground it’s always busy and it’s always hard-working, we’re just not transferring that to games at the moment. “We’ve got to start doing that sooner rather than later.”