STOP giving away stupid goals or it will cost promotion.That is the message from Blues boss Joe Royle as Ipswich prepare to leapfrog Wigan and move into second place.

STOP giving away stupid goals or it will cost promotion.

That is the message from Blues boss Joe Royle as Ipswich prepare to leapfrog Wigan and move into second place.

Victory over Rotherham tomorrow will see Town regain an automatic promotion place if Wigan don't beat Sunderland at the JJB Stadium at the same time.

But Royle has warned they must not gift goals as they did once again to Derby on Saturday, forcing his side to overhaul the opposition for the 11th time this season to gain a result.

Royle said: "We will need to defend better on Tuesday. We don't want to be giving teams a goal start as we did. We keep coming from behind but we can't afford to keep doing that.

"Rotherham is a great opportunity. But we have to be careful. They won at Stoke and they have been party-poopers for us more than once in the past so there will be no lack of respect shown them.

"If we win all our remaining six games we will go up. Easy to say, harder to actually do, but that is what we are aiming for.

"We are nearer to Wigan now, albeit behind on goal difference.

"We can't look at other teams because if we don't win all our games it won't matter."

Royle's defensive concerns returned after Town allowed Marcus Tudgay and Inigo Idiakez free headers to score the opening and the last goals of the game.

Royle said: "We started so sloppy defensively but by half-time we should have been 6-4 ahead. We took over in the second half and at 3-1 I was thinking it was going to be the four, five or six that it should have been.

"But as usual we gave away a late goal and had nervous last few minutes.

"Overall though we played some great football and had we scored double figures there could have been no complaints.

"We have hit the bar, had chances cleared off the line and missed from two inches."

Royle praised the partnership of scorer Darren Bent and Shekfi Kuqi, even though he missed a couple of sitters.

The former England centre-forward said: "As a pair Shefki and Bent were outstanding. I have been critical of them in the past, but that was their answer.

"It was the usual mixture from Shefki, he was magnificent at times but missed chances from two inches. We should know all about him now, but no one works harder.

"Our front men were the difference and every time we got the ball behind Derby it caused problems.

"It was a great win because people were looking at this as a tricky fixture but in the end the 3-2 flattered Derby."

Royle has no injury concerns ahead of tomorrow's game with Rotherham and only took skipper Jim Magilton off early to rest him for Tuesday.