Aston Villa manager, Tim Sherwood, has urged his players to beat the drop - and then nurture a winning mentality. Sherwood believes successive battles with relegation have affected confidence levels.
The boss insists this survival mindset must be cast aside in the coming campaigns under his leadership. And he thinks that this weekend's opponents, Southampton, offer the perfect blueprint of what Villa should be striving for if they get over the finishing line in the next two weekends. He said: "It's not done yet. We need to win one more game. All eyes are set on Southampton and we think we can achieve it there.
They have good players. Ronald Koeman has inherited a good group of players and he's added to it. They have had a very good season. It will be a tough game. We know they have quality - but we have also. They will be playing a very confident Villa side. It's a tough place to play football. But it's nothing to be scared of.
We're doing well. But what's gone on in the past counts for nothing. It's about getting over the line and we're very close to doing that. It's a difficult game but we go there with belief. We believe we can get the job done and get the points needed to stay in the Premier League. This is the aim.
The performances have been good but it's about getting the points now and then rebuilding for next season. From when I arrived, I slowly realised there was enough quality here. As the weeks went on, I realised there was the belief as well.
It was about galvanizing that out of the troops. We've managed to do that. We needs three points now to get ourselves safe. It's not about performances now. It's about results and getting over the line. The result is key, no matter how it comes. We want our fans to be jubilant at the end of the game - no matter how the result arrives." On Saints offering a long-term football strategy for Villa, he added: "It can be achieved. Southampton have been steady. I don't think they have fought relegation too many years.
It's one step at a time. We have to make sure we shake off that relegation tag next season and then we can build. If we can get over the line and then carry on the ratio of what we have done recently at this football club then we will be up there. We just hope we've turned that corner and got that winning habit. There's still a lot of hard work to be done though, starting again this weekend." He hailed his centre-backs Ron Vlaar and Jores Okore on the eve of the encounter as well
