For a season that started with such lofty hopes of gaining promotion back to the Premiership, Town fans didn't expect a battle against relegation this time around. Escaping from the Championship continues to be a challenge, with banana skins lurking around most corners in this highly competitive and unpredictable league.
The blunt fact is that we are now in our eighth season outside the top flight, the longest interval since 1961 with no obvious light at the end of the tunnel.
Despite signs of improvement at home to Nottingham Forest and away to Doncaster Rovers, the fact remains that Ipswich are still winless with a challenging home fixture against second-placed Newcastle United next weekend. Our defence remains suspect and our attack, today excepted, goal shy.
But all is by no means lost. Ipswich's season in 1964 was turned around in game nine by an unexpected 3-1 home win by the bottom of the table Blues against the top of the table Magpies. The win galvanised Ipswich's season under new manager Billy McGarry to the extent that they finished fifth with Newcastle going up as Champions.
An equivalent turnaround now in our fortunes would see Town making the play-offs come the end of the season. To do this though, Ipswich's management team needs to identify what has gone wrong so far this season and fix the problems quickly and effectively.
In fairness to Keane, despite achieving promotion for Sunderland at the first time of asking, he has always stressed that his target was promotion in two seasons.
To put this in perspective, the team he inherited from Jim Magilton was a decent middle-of-the-table side but nothing more. To take it to the next stage meant bringing in players capable of gaining promotion and coping with the demands of the Premiership.
With the exception of Richard Wright, Jon Walters and Owen Garvan, Town lacked the required players to challenge for promotion, let alone go up. The forward line in particular was full of average players of similar ability and cried out for a predatory striker in the mould of a Kevin Phillips or Rob Earnshaw.
Two seasons ago the Tractor Boys had a superb home record but were inept on their travels. Last season, by contrast, Town's away form was good but the equivalent results at Portman Road were disappointing to say the least.
Throughout this period, Ipswich's defence was suspect and the forward line lacked a prolific goal scorer. This resulted in erratic form and results and our failure to win more than two games in a row - hardly the required platform for a sustained promotion challenge.
Doing the double last season over relegated Reading showed the potential of Ipswich but being doubled by promoted Doncaster highlighted our glaring weaknesses.
Since buying our club, Marcus Evans has invested millions in building a team capable of winning promotion. To date, the players bought by both the old and new management teams have failed to deliver the goods. Reports that key players like McAuley can now leave, so soon after joining us for large fees are hardly conducive to good morale - either in the changing rooms or on the terraces.
Roy Keane had a stellar career at Manchester United, but a reputation of being a bit of a loner. As a star player he worked under two of the best British managers since the Second World War in Brian Clough and Sir Alex Ferguson - in theory at least, a great apprenticeship for a young manager.
Both managers were volatile characters and hard taskmasters whose approach was however very different from the 'softer' approach taken by Sir Bobby Robson, which better suited the traditional family image of our club.
Sir Bobby's first full season at Ipswich in 1969 was eerily reminiscent of our current season. No wins in his first seven games, plus the inevitable calls for his head from press and fans alike.
Time alone will tell how good a manager Roy Keane proves to be. To succeed he will need to get onside with fans. The apparently perverse decision to sell the highly rated striker, Jordan Rhodes to League 1 team Huddersfield Town has hardly helped his cause.
He will also need to get onside with his players to get the best out of them. As such, he will need to learn from his previous mistakes at Sunderland and live with the fact that his players are nothing like as good as he was.
Team morale was clearly an issue in the latter stages of the Magilton era and this is probably still true as Keane works to forge a new team.
Finally, and most importantly, he must identify his preferred first team squad and tactics and stick with it - this was another crucial weakness with Magilton.
Although we have already lost four games, these include away defeats against recently relegated WBA and Middlesborough. Other poor results like the away defeat to Coventry and the dour home draw with Leicester are harder to explain away.
The Newcastle game will be pivotal to Ipswich's season and our chances of climbing the table quickly. A bumper crowd plus all the emotion associated with the recent passing of Sir Bobby should make this a game to remember - hopefully for all the right reasons.
This lifelong Ipswich fan has a sneaking feeling that history will repeat itself on 26 September and Roy Keane's side will confound the odds and be celebrating its first win of the season come 5 o'clock.