ANTHONY Barness says he and his fellow defenders should not be reluctant to fight their way out of trouble - even if it means playing unattractive football.

"We can say we've played well on three occasions against some of the better teams - Liverpool, Arsenal and now Tottenham - and we've come away with nothing," he pointed out. "We'd rather have played badly and come away with six points. You can play well for 90 minutes but, if you switch off for a couple of seconds, the damage is done.

"Maybe we should look at what Birmingham and West Brom are doing. They are battling and they're not playing the prettiest of football but they've got more points than us.

"We know we can keep clean sheets because we've done it earlier this season and we did it last season."

Barness, at 29 the youngest of the Bolton back four, says the defenders must shoulder the responsibility.

"It does come down to the whole team but as defenders we look at ourselves as a unit," he explained. "When we start keeping clean sheets, we can start moaning at the forwards but until we do we just have to look at ourselves. It's the same back four that played well in a lot of games last season so we need to get back to what we were doing then.

"It's a big concern being bottom of the league and it's something we have to sort out soon because the longer we stay there, the harder it's going to get."