JUSSI Jaaskelainen has told his Reebok team-mates to put their relegation fears behind them and claim the top half Premiership place they deserve for their honest endeavours.

Saturday’s 4-1 victory over Middlesbrough put Wanderers on to 37 points, equalling last season’s total with seven games still to play.

And, although his manager Gary Megson has warned that will not be enough to beat the drop this time, Jaaskelainen is confident that, having moved eight points clear of the bottom three, the Whites can now start to look up with a degree of confidence.

“This was a massive win for us,” the Finland international said.

“Now we want to push into the top half and, hopefully, kick on from there. I think we can get to ninth or 10th and then build on that for next season.”

Wanderers had hoped to be comfortably clear of the relegation zone by now but the recent defeats at Stoke and at home to Fulham left them still needing points to ensure they are not dragged back into the mix.

But Jaaskelainen, the club’s longest serving player and a veteran of three successful survival missions, is confident they can start to play without fear now the pressure has eased.“From day one when I arrived at the club, the spirit has been good, year after year,” said the 33-year-old who joined Wanderers in November 1997 and has been first choice keeper for a decade.

“But I think this group is the most honest group of players we’ve had over the years.

“Sometimes we don’t get what we deserve on the field but we always keep going, we keep plugging away and working for each other.

“I think we proved that last season. In the position we were in you just don’t give in, you keep working hard, believe in what you are doing and, with a couple of wins you can be in a different position.

“Maybe what happened last season has been at the back of everyone’s minds this time. The pressure is enormous because it’s such a big prize to play in the Premier League, and that’s probably why we have not been playing as well as we can. That’s been a little bit of a concern, but we can leave that behind us now.

“We’ve had a great opportunity over the last four games, but we were poor against Stoke and poor against Fulham – then we went to West Brom and got back to the level we can play and we carried that on against Middlesbrough.“Now, if we keep working hard for one another, we will get more wins than defeats”

Megson insists there is still work to be done before they can relax. But, after seeing the way his players handled a high pressure situation to push Middlesbrough to the brink of relegation, he spoke in confident tones of the team spirit and the endeavour that should assure Wanderers a ninth successive season of top-flight football.“We certainly can’t sit back and say the points we’ve got now would enable us to stay up because I don’t think it will,” he said.

“Whoever is going to finish third bottom is going to have more than that. So we’ve got to keep ploughing on.

“If we get 40 points, great, but then I’d want 41, 42 . . .if we could get another 21 that would be fantastic. I just hope we can finish in a strong vein.”