Burnley manager Sean Dyche has urged his players to rediscover their fighting spirit in the scrap for Premier League survival.
With just one point from their last six matches, following a 2-0 defeat at Crystal Palace on Saturday, only Fulham began the day below Burnley in the division.
The Clarets finished a dizzying seventh last season, but were desperately out of sorts against a Palace side, who until Saturday's fixture, had failed to score a single goal at home from open play this term.
"We are in that strange position where the eye of the tiger has gone a little bit," Dyche said. "Last year everyone was on it, all of the time, and we showed no fear.
"We looked people in the eye and said, 'you had better be ready, because we are'.
"These players have worked hard to achieve and play at this level. So, now it's about taking it on, and I think there's a fight in there.
"Nobody gives you anything in football and we've earned this right, and you have to earn it again when people are knocking you. That's the biggest time to get those gloves on and say, 'bring it on'."
Burnley's task is set to get even tougher with the visit of Liverpool to Turf Moor on Wednesday before matches against Tottenham and Arsenal to come later in December.
But Dyche hopes his side's poor run of results will actually ease the pressure on his players.
"The one thing that comes back our way is that status of being the underdog," he added.
"We went beyond that last season, and maybe that will have a positive effect in the psyche of both the players and the fans.
"I don't stare at the league table. Of course you've got to be aware of it, but it is not about that. We need to get back to a level of really strong, consistent performances.
"It might be a case of two steps forward, and one step back, but we have to keep building and get back to having that eye of the tiger."
James McArthur opened the scoring for Palace after 16 minutes before Andros Townsend put the result beyond doubt with a spectacular strike in the second half.
The victory takes Palace up to 14th in the table ahead of their visit to Brighton on Tuesday evening.
"We've got a difficult period now, and we've got a lot of games in a short space of time," Townsend said.
"But we have to keep going, keep the momentum and keep picking up points.
"We've been strong most of this season. Even though results haven't gone our way, and we're near the bottom of the table, performances have been very good and we knew if we kept that up the result would come, and thankfully it did against Burnley."
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