Ipswich v Derby: Dean Gerken says an Ipswich Town side brimming with confidence can ‘do a job’ against high-flying Derby County at Portman Road tonight.

The third-place Rams look to have a play-off place in the bag following their 5-0 thrashing of East Midlands rivals Nottingham Forest at the weekend, while Ipswich’s own top six hopes are still very much alive after their 2-0 win at Brighton kept them in the mix with nine games to go.

“I’m sure Derby will take a lot of confidence from their result, but our result was massive too,” said Gerken, who has now kept nine clean sheets this season.

“To go to Brighton and put the performance in that we did – the perfect away performance – will have made a lot of teams sit up and take notice.

“All we do know is they’re a good team, we’re a good team and it should be a corker.”

Town drew 4-4 at Pride Park last October, having led 4-1 at half-time, and Gerken says that Mick McCarthy’s men can take a lot of positives from that match heading into tonight’s reverse fixture.

“That was one of the strangest games,” he recalled. “To play so well in the first half only for them to come back was tough. That kick-started their season.

“We know we can score goals against them though and we know we can do a job against them.”

Currently five points adrift of sixth-place Reading, Ipswich host Nottingham Forest on Saturday. The latter sacked manager Billy Davies yesterday, a seven-game winless streak having seen them drop out of the play-off places.

“The form book goes out the window at this time of the season,” said Gerken. “Teams start to struggle and there could be a late surge from someone.

“These next two games are massive and it’s great that they’re both at home. We haven’t talked about a points target. You can work out an average that people go up with, but that might not be the case this season.

“You just have to put as many on the board and hope that’s enough.”