Paul Anderson says an Ipswich Town side brimming with confidence will show no mercy against free-falling Nottingham Forest at Portman Road tomorrow.

The Blues appear to be timing their late run to perfection, superb wins against Brighton and Derby meaning they are just two points adrift of the top six heading into the final eight games of the Championship campaign.

Forest, by contrast, are heading in the opposite direction. Just a few weeks ago they were in contention for an automatic promotion spot, but the injury-hit outfit have dropped out of the play-off places following an eight-game winless streak.

“I know people will say you can’t blame injuries, but they’ve got pretty much a whole first team 11 out at the moment,” said Anderson, when asked about his former club’s woes. “Compare it our squad. David McGoldrick got injured and people say ‘what a big loss that is’ – and that’s just one player. Look at them and they’ve had six or seven McGoldrick type injuries. It makes it very difficult.

“We’ll just be looking at ourselves though and will be going into the game thinking ‘we’ll win this’. We don’t need any more motivation than knowing that we could end the day back in the play-off places.

“As much as I loved my time at Forest, I don’t have any ties there anymore. They’re nothing to do with me anymore; I’m an Ipswich Town player, I’m enjoying my football here more than ever before and we’re desperate to be that team in the play-offs. If that ends up being at the expense of Forest then so be it.”

He continued: “I’m very confident we can finish in the top six. I think we’ve been quietly confident from day one that we’d have half a sniff at the play-off places. There are some good teams in this league, but we always believed that our work-rate and togetherness would be our strength.

“We believe we can be that Blackpool type of side who comes strong, makes the play-offs and goes up (like in 2009/10). I think we’ve got a lot more ability than that Blackpool team had actually.

“We know that if we play to the best of our ability we’re going to beat anyone in the league. I think we’ve proved that against some of the top teams. We may not always have got the results, but you can only look after your performance and we’ve performed very well against the biggest teams.”

Forest sacked manager Billy Davies following their 5-0 thrashing at the hands of East Midlands rivals Derby last weekend. Youth team boss Gary Brazil was in caretaker charge for the 1-0 home defeat against Charlton in midweek and is set to continue those duties at Portman Road tomorrow.

Neil Warnock has turned down the job at The City Ground, stating the conditions weren’t right, while former Forest favourite Stuart Pearce has also said he will not be taking the position after holding talks.

Glenn Hoddle, Malky Mackay, Steve Clarke and Dean Saunders have all been linked with the vacancy