Damien Delaney remains confident that, despite Crystal Palace’s worrying form, the side can rally together and put in performances when it matters towards the end of the season.

The Londoners are deep in a relegation dogfight this year and Saturday’s 1-0 loss at Stoke City leaves them in 19^th place – two points from safety.

The bottom five teams are separated by just two points, making Saturday’s clash against fellow strugglers Middlesbrough vital to their season.

And Delaney believes they will pull together and dig themselves out of trouble.

Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images

“This is going to go to the wire, so we need everyone to get behind us because we are certainly not dead and buried yet, we are not in a mission impossible situation.

“We have 13 games left and are only two points off getting out the bottom three places.”

“As a group of players we need to stick together and move forward after the break with our game against Middlesbrough at Selhurst in a couple of weeks time.

“The performance we gave in the game at Stoke City has got to be the blueprint going forward.

“We have been working an awful lot on our shape and being defensively better and I think our display showed the work we had put in on the training ground since the last game.”

Tottenham’s rising star Kyle Walker-Peters put pen to paper this week, keeping him at Spurs until 2019 and is relishing the chance to learn from the club’s best.

The 19-year-old full-back, who had featured on Spurs’ bench in both of their FA Cup ties to date, is trying to learn as much as he can from the side’s top defenders.

He said: “I’m learning from Kyle Walker, Danny Rose, Trips (Kieran Trippier) and Ben Davies all the time and that helps a lot. We have probably the two best starting full-backs in the country in Walker and Rose,” he said.

“My long-term goal is definitely to play for Tottenham. I’m a Spurs fan, I was born at North Middlesex Hospital (in Edmonton, just a stone’s throw from White Hart Lane), I’ve grown up in Tottenham and I’ve supported the club all my life.”

(Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Walker-Peters, who has represented England Under-20s, lauded the rise of 21-year-old Harry Winks (who also signed a new contract this week) as inspiration for his own progress at the club.

“I think every young player at the club should look at Harry Winks and think if he’s done it, I can do it too,” he said.

“That’s my motivation. I can’t sit around, I have to focus on each week as it comes, then focus on pushing and pushing again. I saw Harry go through it, he kept working hard for months and years and he got his reward in the end so I just need to keep pushing to try to earn it too.”

Bournemouth midfielder Harry Arter believes Jack Wilshere has established himself as a key player for the Cherries this season citing his injury as a factor which helped decide Monday’s clash with Manchester City.

Bournemouth were competitive against City but Wilshere limped off before half-time during the Cherries’ 2-0 defeat.

Wilshere, 25, has been unlucky with injuries in the past and the on-loan midfielder now faces an agonising wait to discover his scan results.

Arter pointed to the significance of losing Wilshere and believes his fitness will be crucial going forward as Bournemouth try to avoid being dragged into a relegation scrap.

(Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)

“I felt we were getting into the game but then we have Franno (Simon Francis) and then Jack going off and it is hard as you have to reshuffle.” said Arter.

“We had quality coming on for them but we prepared a game plan with those players in place all week, not just a day or two before but all week.

“Jack’s quality is key and Franno’s the captain, so it was hard for us to gain our rhythm again. I thought we did at the start of the second half and on another day we could have caused them more problems.”

Wilshere has impressed at Bournemouth, making 22 Premier League appearances so far this season on-loan from the Gunners.

Emre Can insists his side have learned a great deal from their January struggles and has backed the Reds to come firing back at the business end of the season.

Jurgen Klopp’s side went through a miserable run at the start of 2017 that saw them knocked out of the FA and EFL Cups and only win one of their previous ten games going into last weekend.

Their title challenge looked dead in the water but Sadio Mane’s double in their 2-0 win over Tottenham has reinvigorated their season.

And Can is confident the Klopp influence will get them back on the straight and narrow in the coming months.

“He is a very positive guy and has been encouraging us and trying to help us have a positive frame of mind so that everybody believes and thinks positively again,” he said.

“We have had a lot of meetings and he tries to motivate us because he also knows that we cannot forget the good times we have had this season.

“We are fifth in the league – one point off fourth – which is not too bad in a strong league.

Photo by Christopher Lee/Getty Images

“We know how quickly things can turn around in football. We have to stay together, be one team and look forward.

“Of course, after we had so many good times in the first half of the season, nobody thought that we would have a spell [like we had]. I think we can learn a lot from the past month and come back stronger.

“[The target has] always been to finish in the top four of the Premier League as we want to play in the Champions League next year. When you play for Liverpool, playing in the Champions League is always the target.”

West Ham United skipper Mark Noble has revealed his intention to finish his playing career at his boyhood club.

Noble, a product of the Hammers’ academy, made his full debut aged 17 and is six short of 400 first-team appearances.

He will be 33 when his contract expires in 2021, but Noble says he cannot envisage playing his football anywhere other than the London Stadium.

“I would like to finish my career here, that’s what I’ve always thought,” said Noble.

“I can’t see myself playing for another football team, but football is such a changing world so you can’t ever tell what’s going to happen next season.

“There aren’t many of us now, because football is forever changing, managers change and relegation battles mean players move on, so I think it would be very hard for players now to keep in the team they support and stay there after coming through the Academy. I can’t see it happening.

“I’ve managed to captain this fantastic club, which is something very few players get to do, captaining the club they support, so it’s a major honour for me. I don’t think I’ll appreciate it fully until I stop playing.”

(Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images)

Despite their difficult start in their new home at the London Stadium, Noble is pleased with their recent form.

“It’s been a tough season with ups and downs but we’re tenth in the league now and our form over the last couple of months has been fantastic, so we’re looking up,” he added.

“We just want to finish with many points as we can, and it would be nice to reach that 40-point mark as soon as possible, then we can really push on.”

With Burnley placed a comfortable 12^th in the Premier League table their fans could be forgiven for wanting the season to end now.

But defender Matthew Lowton insists the only way is up.

The Clarets have got 29 of their 30 points on home turf, a tally only surpassed by Tottenham Hotspur and runaway leaders Chelsea.

Over the last five seasons an average of 36 points has been sufficient to ensure top-flight survival, so Burnley are tantalisingly close to that mark with a third of the season still to play.

But, rather than limp over the line to safety – with four successive away matches in the Premier League now on the agenda – Lowton wants Burnley to push on.

“We are on the way to where we want to be,” said the 27-year-old.

“At this stage of the season, to have 30 points on the board is brilliant for us as a team and a club and will give the fans something else to celebrate.

“We are trying to look up as much as anything at this stage.

“We have put ourselves in a great position to stay in the league and hopefully we can finish even higher than that.”

Consistent selection is often the key to success, but Stoke City’s Joe Allen believes a new-look midfield has helped the Potters climb the table this season.

Stoke suffered a disastrous start to the campaign and languished in the relegation zone until a 2-0 win at Hull City in October.

But they now sit ninth – a familiar place, where they have finished the last three campaigns.

Manager Mark Hughes attempted to slowly change Stoke’s style of play, but the likes of Giannelli Imbula and Bojan have failed to perform at their best this season – forcing Hughes to chop and change until finding a consistent solution in the heart of midfield.

And it appears he has finally found one, with veterans Glenn Whelan and Charlie Adam playing behind Allen – who scored in Saturday’s 1-0 win against Crystal Palace.

“I think we have a bit of everything in our midfield three which is great,” the Welsh international said.

“There have been changes throughout the season and everybody knows they can’t rest on their laurels but in recent weeks it’s worked really well.

“I think that’s one of the reasons behind our good form in 2017 and to break 30 points is a big marker in the Premier League, particularly if you consider the start that we had.

“We’ve come a long way since those first few games and the three points at the weekend means we can look upwards again at who we can possibly chase and track down.”

Defender Ben Gibson hopes a mid-season jaunt to Benidorm can help to reignite Middlesbrough’s firepower.

Boro are the Premier League’s lowest goal scorers with 19 from 25 games and Alvaro Negredo and Cristhian Stuani are the only squad members to have netted more than twice.

Just two points clear of the relegation zone, Boro have also recorded fewer wins than anyone else in the division – four.

Boss Aitor Karanka took his team to his native Spain for warm weather training last week and the fruits of their labour were apparent in a positive display on Saturday as they held Everton to a goalless draw.

Now though, with togetherness reaffirmed, Gibson wants a collective effort to ensure the ball starts hitting the back of the net.

“You spend that time together and you can re-evaluate and reaffirm your ambitions, and most importantly build team camaraderie,” said the 23-year-old.

“This team has changed a lot, but the nucleus has always had that togetherness.

“It brought us back from defeat in the Championship play-off final to be promoted the following year. We’ve been written off but come back time and time again.

“Now we’re desperate to get games and wins under our belt.

“We all want to score more goals, we all have a part in that and we’re showing signs of improvement.”

Watford must learn to be clinical if they want to thrive this season – that’s according to midfielder Etienne Capoue.

The Hornets showed promise against Manchester United over the weekend but still went down 2-0, and lie 13^th in the Premier League table.

Watford got in plenty of good positions at Old Trafford but struggled to test Red Devils goalkeeper David De Gea with any regularity and failed to turn limited opportunities into goals.

And Capoue admits the game was something of a struggle, as the Vicarage Road outfit succumbed to goals from Juan Mata and Anthony Martial.

Photo credit: Getty Images

“They put us under a lot of pressure,” said Capoue. “We tried to play our football, but it was difficult and we didn’t create a lot of chances.

“We wanted to repeat the performance that we managed at Arsenal, but they played well in the midfield and created a lot of spaces. It was difficult for us to combat it, and they scored two good goals.

“We need to be more clinical at both ends of the pitch. When you have an opportunity to score, you have to take it, especially against this type of team.

“[M’Baye] Niang made a lot of chances out wide to cross, but we need to be in the box to finish it.”

Oriol Romeu insists that the enduring support of the fans will ensure the Saints season finishes on a high.

The Saints snapped a three-game losing streak last weekend when they downed Sunderland 4-0 at the Stadium of Light and currently sit 11^th in the Premier League table.

But they are already in the EFL Cup final after beating Liverpool in the semi-finals last month and Romeu – who was voted player of the month for January by the club’s fans – is confident there are celebrations to come.

“I’m really happy because the fans recognise the work of the pitch and it’s something that’s very nice to have,” said Romeu upon receiving his trophy.

“In that month we get into the final and the semi-final against Liverpool was amazing for all of us.

(Photo by Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)

“It was a great experience. The second leg at Anfield was something we always dreamed of. It couldn’t have been any better and now we want to finish that work off.

“It’s very nice to have that support from them and I’m feeling happy here. Having that support from them is amazing and every time I play I really enjoy it.

“I want to keep having that feeling but I need to keep working so I don’t lose it. It’s amazing the way they’ve treated me since I came here and I want to give that love back.”