Goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski is confident Town will not be drawn into a desperate last-ditch struggle to avoid being relegated to League One.

Despite losing just once in their last nine games — 3-1 at Cardiff last time out — they have slipped to 17th place, just five points off the drop zone, and face key games against Birmingham and Wigan at home in the next few days.

But when asked how he viewed the current situation, 29-year-old Bialkowski said: “I’m easy. I’m sure we are not going to be going into the last game of the season needing to win to stay up.

“I’m quite confident because we have so much quality in the squad and I believe in them.”

The Pole has fairly recent experience of last-day survival when previous club Notts County drew 1-1 at Oldham in May 2014 in what proved to be his last game for the Magpies, his contract having expired and his move to Portman Road being completed a couple of months later.

Bialkowski stressed the need for positive thinking as he recalled the events of almost three years ago.

“When I was at Notts County we were down at the bottom for almost all the season,” he remembered.

“And with seven or eight games to go we were still there and something like eight points — I can’t remember how many exactly — from safety.

“But we believed in ourselves and we were working hard on the pitch, plus the fans were behind us. We managed to stay in the league.

“I think it’s all in your head — if you’ve been at the bottom all season and then manage to get out of the situation with eight games left it’s not because you have all become better players in just two or three months.”

Bialkowski denied that he would even be nervous going into the final eight games of the current campaign, adding: “I never get nervous. I am doing a job I love and I love football, so there is no point in being nervous. This is what I dreamed about when I was young, playing football in the big stadiums, and it’s a privilege.

“At Notts County we had to fight right until the last game of the season and managed to stay in League One. I know how it feels to be in that sort of battle. You just have to do your job as well as you can.”

Do Town need to take six points from the Birmingham and Wigan fixtures in order to survive? Bialkowski said: “We go into every game with the desire to win and these two games will be no different.

“Obviously we are at a stage of the season when we badly need the points and that will be our aim.

“It’s all about hard work and not always about playing nice football. It’s about the graft you put in, both on the training pitch and on match days.

“The Championship is a hard league and we need to be 110 per cent in every game, otherwise the other team is going to punish us.”

Photo: TWTD

raycrawfordswig added 21:18 - Mar 30 It's a shame your team mates don't give the same mount of effort as you .
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StowTractorBoy added 21:33 - Mar 30 I don't think you can criticise the players for their efforts as they do give it their all. Whether some are good enough however is questionable.
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Seasider added 13:42 - Mar 31 The penultimate paragraph about graft and hard work,and not always about playing nice football could have come from the Managers many interviews;and sums up McCarthy's philosophy. If we manage to stay up,then a lot of the credit for this will go to our excellent Polish custodian.
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