Town must overcome the pressure of fighting relegation if they are going to pull clear of trouble, striker David McGoldrick has warned.

McGoldrick said: “There probably will be pressure but that’s what players have to go out and deal with. You have to forget the pressure and concentrate on playing.

“We also have to use our home advantage, the way we did against Middlesbrough and Blackpool. It’s not always going to be pretty, say the way Watford are playing with their one or two touches and neat passing.

“It’s going to take determined performances, with everybody rolling their sleeves up, to get the points we need.”

Town go into this weekend’s trip to face relegation rivals Huddersfield having just been beaten at home by in-form Watford, who are firmly in the hunt for automatic promotion.

McGoldrick added: “Watford are the best team I’ve played against this season. I’ve played against the Championship leaders, Cardiff, and Blackburn, who came down from the Premier League, but they didn’t impress me the way Watford did.

“Apart from the way they played, they were also clinical and ruthless. Right from the first couple of minutes, when Jonathan Hogg hit a shot against the bar, you could see how confident they were.

“They are putting in real performances and it’s hard to play against — but we are also a hard team to play against.

“When Blackpool came down here they were probably expecting to score goals because there have only been a few occasions when they have failed to score away from home.

“But they didn’t really have that many chances against us and although it’s not always pretty we can play good football at times. We did against Watford for spells and we should have had a penalty.

“I’ve played against teams like us and it can be horrible. You get closed down straight away and hustled. Blackpool didn’t like it last week and their players were getting frustrated because we had people on them.

“Their wingers didn’t get a lot of joy. I spoke to one of the Blackpool players and their wingers were complaining that once they got round one defender there was another one waiting for them.

“We’ve got 31 points since the gaffer came in. That’s a lot of points and hard work has got us most of them. It will need more of the same to make sure we are safe in this league. There are no heads down here — we are all confident that we can do it.”

Photo: Action Images

Kesgraveblue57 added 08:31 - Feb 22 Yes David and you want to start to score it would help
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Hally543 added 08:48 - Feb 22 He's doing the best he can considering the midfield create nothing for him, his goal against boro was all his own work and I can't remember the midfield putting a ball through that he could score off
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BrettenhamBlue added 09:53 - Feb 22 Agree with you Hally543. Service to our strikers has been bloody awful. Drury and N'Daw are doing a good job of controlling the centre but our creativity is at practically zero. Tempted to say go with 1 striker for this one and add Drury to midfiled-attack to try and create SOMETHING. Hard game ahead...but Huddersfield have struggled since Rhodes left. Will be great to see our "road runner" (Lee Martin) back in the team. Maybe his running will create something by accident......

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bohslegend added 13:57 - Feb 22 I dont understand some of the commentary on here. A fixation with playing attacking football. Sounds great if we are in the play-off positions and challenging for promotion. But face up to where we are: battling to stay in this division. And before MM came in we were shipping goals every time the ball came into our half. His focus, rightly so, has been to make the team more solid from front to back in defensive situations. This leads to us being competitive in games and even when we do concede, we dont roll over as we did previously. In order to stay up we need to be tighter defensively. Win games (or draw) by being hard to beat. Yes, when we get chances we need to be taking them. But the priority since MM came in has had to be defending (front to back).

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WhoisJimmyJuan added 20:21 - Feb 22 Bohslegend. Absolutely spot on and that is what mm has said. I truly believe this is our toughest relegation test yet. I watched an old vid earlier, 'the road to Europe'. Highlights of 2000/01 season. I wanted to cry because our crossing from the likes of clap ham, magilton and jermaine wright was awesome. It is this service we lack. But that is an issue to be sorted in seasons ahead. For now, be ugly and survive. Bit like me.

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