Keith Millen freely acknowledges Bristol City must improve their away form if they are to achieve anything this season.

Sunday's surprise win over West Bromwich Albion has revived talk of a late run to the play-offs.

But that will only be remotely realistic if City can arrest an alarming sequence of results on the road.

The Robins have triumphed just twice away from Ashton Gate this term – at Barnsley in October and at Leicester in December.

Tomorrow City visit an Ipswich Town side who, despite being 19th in the table, cannot fairly be described as struggling.

After their worst ever start to a campaign, Roy Keane's side have improved markedly. While City have won away twice, the Suffolk club has only lost at home twice since the season began.

"We have to be solid but we have to do better away from home," said assistant boss Millen, who was standing in for unavailable manager Gary Johnson at yesterday's press conference.

"Our home form has been decent – we have drawn too many with too many late goals – but it is our away form we have to pick up on if we are to do anything this year."

Millen acknowledges Portman Road will be a tough nut to crack.

Several members of the current City side will recall a 6-0 defeat to the Tractor Boys two seasons ago.

"We know it is going to be a tough game going there," said the former defender.

"They are a hard team to beat – they have had a lot of draws this year and I think they have only lost two games there this year.

"We know what they are about. They are two banks of four and hard to get through.

"They are working hard for the manager. He seems to have turned it around, but they are not out of trouble like a lot of teams.

"We are going there in a better frame of mind than if we had not got a result Sunday."

Millen concedes that the 2-1 win against West Brom was a much needed shot in the arm.

"It lifted the whole club and it certainly lifted the players, staff and supporters," he said. "It was a good performance against a good side.

"There had been a bit of doom and gloom about the place and I think that was an ideal game for us and it being live on TV the watching public would have seen that too.

"You could see the lads' confidence wasn't great so to have that belief to go out there second half and turn it around was great.

"When you go 1-0 down you are concerned and we said if we stepped on to them a bit more we could win the game and we had a terrific second half."

City's victory came courtesy of a switch to a 4-2-3-1 formation. The acquisition of targetman Chris Iwelumo has allowed Lee Johnson to support the attack from midfield while Danny Haynes has licence to use his pace down the right.

Millen acknowledges such a formation could leave them open and may have to be tweaked away from home.

"When the team plays well and wins a game and puts a lot of work in it is difficult to change it but if there is injury or illness you have to change it," he said.

"If you keep possession it doesn't really matter what the opposition do.

"If you keep the ball better then they have to worry about you. If you have too many people running forward you can leave yourself open so you have to have that balance right."

On-loan Wolves man Iwelumo gives City much needed presence up front – an aspect that Patrick Agyemang, among others, was not able to provide.

"We know what his strengths are," said Millen. "There was no point bringing him in and playing a different game.

"We don't want to end up launching balls up to him but we also know he keeps the ball in the area.

"We know he will at least make the defenders struggle to clear it and we know he can get on the end of crosses. He has certainly added to the team and we have to keep feeding him."