Full-back David Wright says the Blues have to get "back to basics” in order to get their season back on track after last night's woeful 3-0 home defeat to Southampton.

Wright told the club site: "It might not be a bad thing that we don't have a game at the weekend because it can give us time to reflect on what went wrong against Southampton, talk about it and do something about it.

"We just didn't compete against Southampton and you don't win anything without competing. We have got to get back to basics; getting in people's faces and playing at a good tempo.

"We have shown we can do that and we have players in the dressing room with the ability to take this club forward. But we have had a rollercoaster run of form lately and, because we've lacked that consistency, we are where we are.

"No team plays well every week. Manchester United don't play well every week but the teams that are successful know how to grind out a result when they are not playing well, and we've lacked that in our armoury sometimes.

"We've got two hard away games coming up in Wolves and Reading but there are still 30 points to play for. If we can find the form that we know we are capable of producing then the play-offs are still within reach, but we know we have to deliver."

Meanwhile, Town chairman David Sheepshanks is to chair a board charged with finally getting the FA's long-proposed National Football Centre built in Staffordshire.

The centre of excellence was first proposed a decade ago, but despite around £28 million being spent on the project, it is expected to fail to make its completion date of 2010 by some distance.

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