INTERNATIONAL breaks can drag on at the best of times, especially when your side goes into one after a defeat. However, this particular fortnight feels even longer than most for Town fans.

Although Saturday’s game at Bristol City ended in a 1-0 loss, the response to that result was rather muted, the season appearing over from a competitive perspective barring a miracle run of results the Blues have shown little sign of being able to put together since the opening month of the campaign.

This international break feels especially long more because everything seems on hold at Town at the moment, that we’re all just marking time until there’s an announcement on whether manager Mick McCarthy will be staying or going in the summer.

Until then, with nothing aside from the traditional pride left to play for on the pitch, everything else is a bit of a sideshow.

The Bristol City defeat was another of those close Championship games of few chances which Town have tended to come out on top of during most of the McCarthy years but have more often than not lost this season.

The wind and snow hampered both sides but the Blues created more of the first-half chances.

However, the Robins, who are very much in with a shout of reaching the play-offs, sitting one point and one place from the top six, improved in the slightly less polar second half and created the game’s one out and out opportunity when Milan Djuric got ahead of Adam Webster to nod in what proved to be the decisive goal.

At the end, there was no repeat of the boos or abuse aimed towards manager McCarthy during and after the 3-0 home defeat to Hull.

Everybody was too cold to hang around beyond the whistle and, in any case, the Blues had been nothing like as poor as they were against the Tigers and they probably deserved a point.

Afterwards Bristol City manager Lee Johnson became the latest opposition boss to question why Town fans have turned so vehemently against McCarthy, stating: “[Ipswich] do very, very well for their resources and what they’ve got. I don’t really understand the moans and groans because they’ve got a top manager there.”

Purely on the basis of league position achieved on a limited budget, Johnson, Ian Holloway and the rest may have a point and managers will always look at things in those terms above all else - as well as defending one of their own, of course - but that’s not really what’s at the heart of Blues’ supporters’ frustrations.

It appears not to have permeated more widely that the issue is a total breakdown in the relationship between manager and fans, most of whom have little time for him personally or for what they perceive to be his preferred style of football.

Town are expected to release next year’s season ticket prices before the end of the month with an across the board cut anticipated in order to try to reduce the likely further drop in numbers, along with a letter of intent which ideally will include a commitment to increasing the funds available to whoever is in charge next term.

While a price reduction will be broadly welcomed, many fans are likely to keep their wallets firmly closed until they know whether there is going to be a change at the top.

That appears unlikely to come until the end of the season, although with nothing left to play for there seems little reason not to confirm McCarthy’s exit, as now seems certain to be what happens, sooner rather than later and start the process of building bridges with fans before recruiting the new man in the summer.

That will be the next far from easy task for owner Marcus Evans, finding a manager who can unify a currently divided club and then achieve success in a Championship in which becomes richer and tougher with every year that passes.

A big job for whoever gets it.

Prior to that appointment, potentially as crucial as any in the club’s history, and once this international break is out of the way, there are still eight games of this season to be ticked off.

Ideally one or two of the younger fringe players in the squad will be blooded over the course of those fixtures, with Ben Morris already having been given a couple of run-outs as a sub. Aaron Drinan and Ben Folami might also be given some game time.

But other than that there’ll not be much to enthuse the Blues’ support while they await that all-important announcement.