WHILE The Boomtown Rats famously had no time at all for Mondays, Town fans absolutely adore Tuesdays at the moment, if there’s a home game anyway.

This week’s 2-1 victory over Reading was the Blues’ 16th successive win at Portman Road on a Tuesday, a remarkable and slightly strange record now going back three years.

While definitive historical data relating to clubs’ longest runs of home wins on Tuesdays isn’t readily available (I’ve looked), there can’t be many sides who have achieved similarly strong Tuesday home form, certainly not in divisions as competitive as the Championship.

Calls for the club to be renamed ‘Ipswich Tuesday’ are probably a step too far but in the context of the season the record has been vital to the Tuesday-tastic Blues’ play-off push given that it comes at a time when overall home form hasn’t actually been that good.

The victory over the Royals was only Town’s sixth in their 15 Championship games at Portman Road this season with their home form the ninth best in the division. On Saturdays Town have won only twice at home all season.

Contrast that with the Blues’ away form – won seven, drawn three, lost four – which is the second best in the Championship and where they have picked up precisely half of their 48 points.

Town’s latest Tuesday triumph won’t be one of those games people recall fondly over a pint in years to come, despite the drama of Brett Pitman’s 89th-minute winner.

The first half was especially drab and the game as a whole was played in a very understated, almost pre-season atmosphere.

Perhaps the home non-Tuesday form had something to do with that, as well as the previous run of three games without a win and the Blues’ drop out of the play-off zone.

And maybe the transfer window having closed the previous day also had some impact on the rather sullen ambience.

While Middlesbrough were adding Town’s great lost striker Jordan Rhodes to their ranks for £9 million – joining David Nugent, can’t say I’m looking forward to the trip to Teesside in April – and the likes of Derby and Sheffield Wednesday were also splashing the cash, there was little business at Portman Road.

Free agent Kevin Foley came in to replace the departed Jonny Parr and Barnsley youngster Paul Digby was brought in on loan as one for the future but, aside from those signings and veteran winger Jerome Thomas arriving on trial to potentially replace the exiting Tommy Oar, the senior squad remained the same.

Manager Mick McCarthy reiterated that he is happy with what he’s got and that it would cost multi-millions to improve upon those in his first team.

Multi-millions not available to him with owner Marcus Evans continuing to operate the club at a more sustainable level, despite this year’s increased Financial Fair Play limit, the £8 million fee received from Bournemouth for Tyrone Mings and other clubs’ rather less frugal approach.

Given the spending elsewhere there has been plenty of frustration that the Blues haven’t followed suit.

While it’s wrong to suggest that there has been no investment since the sale of Mings – the wage bill will have risen significantly with the close season recruitment and new more lucrative long-term contracts for key players and the club will still almost certainly record a loss – the feeling is that Town’s hand may have been weakened by their lack of January activity.

But McCarthy is confident that his squad is capable of achieving their pre-season aim of the play-offs, even if the automatic places will almost certainly go to the bigger spenders. Time will tell whether he’s right.

The Reading victory saw the Blues return to sixth, a point ahead of Sheffield Wednesday and Birmingham, who meet at St Andrew’s tomorrow.

Town therefore have a good opportunity to put some clear space between themselves and at least one of their closest challengers when they visit QPR.

When the West Londoners were at Portman Road on Boxing Day the Blues won another game 2-1 in the final moments and given their away form the Blues stand a very good chance of grabbing what would be their second double of the season.

A visit to strugglers Bristol City follows next week before leaders Hull City are at Portman Road a week on Tuesday. Now that really will be a test of that Tuesday night home record.