MIKE Whitlow is confident Wanderers will win their fight to stay in the Premiership and is determined to help.

But the veteran defender is not sure to be at the Reebok next season to enjoy the fruits of his labours.

"I just want to keep playing," said the 35-year-old as he set his sights on a swift return after being stopped in his comeback tracks by the latest in a succession of injuries that have limited his appearances this season.

"You never know what's going to happen. At the end of the season the gaffer might say or I might say it's time for a move. We'll have to see.

"I'm sure sooner or later somebody will say 'You're not good enough'. But until my heart says 'That's it' - and I hope that won't be for a long time yet - I'll keep playing, whether it's here or somewhere else."

Whitlow is itching to return to a squad he believes is strong enough to repeat last year's survival success. "I think the performance level has been just as high," he explains. "We've slipped up on a few occasions in the 90-oddth minute and for the sake of a couple more minutes we've seen some valuable points lost and that makes a lot of difference in the Premiership. I suppose the teams below us will be saying the same but if we keep going and stick together, we'll be okay.

"We've still got West Ham and Sunderland to play and it's going to be close again - maybe we just like keeping people on their toes!"

Whitlow - as influential in the dressing room as he is on the field - holds great store by team spirit, which has been one of Wanderers' strengths in recent seasons. But he saw signs as he watched the recent 2-1 home defeat by Everton that he admits had him worried that the growing influx of foreign players might be starting to have a detrimental effect. Thankfully his faith and confidence were quickly restored.

"It does help if you all get on but it doesn't matter if you want the same thing and you are together when you cross that white line," he explains.

"We've had a big talk about this. It was something I spotted. I don't know if it's just me and my mentality but when the goals went in against Everton there was no-one having a go at each other, nobody saying 'Let's roll our sleeves up!' That's how I saw it and that's never happened before.

"You've really got to care and really got to pull together ... then the next game against Birmingham you could see that they did.

"We had Jay-Jay saying we've got to take the responsibility on our shoulders and doing something about it. You never get anywhere with just an 'I' attitude, it's got to be 'We'.

"You never see David Beckham having any problem chasing back and helping everybody out. That's how it's got to be."

Whitlow believes the players' Christmas night out - a trip to a Chinese restaurant in Horwich - helped integrate the likes of Okocha into the Wanderers' team ethic.

"Jay-Jay is the most talented player I've ever been around on a football field," he says in praise of the ubiquitous Nigerian captain, who performed his tricks at Eintracht Frankfurt, Fenerbahce and Paris St Germain before arriving at the Reebok last summer. "Some of the stuff he does is unbelievable. We know he's magic from the stuff we see but on Saturday it's different. People just see him as a great player and take it for granted that he'll settle in.

"But it's a different football than he's used to, a different lifestyle. He's had to move his family then move them again and it's not easy.

"It helped when Jay-Jay and his wife came out with us on the annual 'do'. It was an open invitation and most of the lads took it up. There were a few who couldn't make it and a few who had friends over, so they came along as well.

"The people at the restaurant are fantastic with us - we had a room to ourselves - and there was a little dancing and singing, nothing ridiculous. Just nice to get everybody together. Jay-Jay's like a different person now and young Jeff Smith has never looked back."