SIMON Charlton looked down at the shrinking safety net that stands between Wanderers and the Premiership drop zone and admitted: "We are in a bit of a crisis."

Four successive defeats have turned the season on its head. A month ago, before they started hot favourites to beat a Manchester City side that was in freefall, Reebok fans had good reason to think that Europe was on the horizon, whether through the Carling Cup route or the Premiership.

Now they fear that, unless there is a dramatic improvement in results, they could again be caught up in the frenzied, nailbiting scrap for survival.

"We're better than that," Charlton insisted. "We've had a good season and we shouldn't have to worry about that.

"But we've really got to get to grips with the situation or we will become involved in it."

Of their final nine fixtures, only Saturday's Reebok clash with fifth-placed Newcastle sees Wanderers pitched against any of the Champions League contenders but, should the losing sequence continue, comparatively "easy" games against Villa, Spurs, Leeds and Fulham at home and trips to Middlesbrough, Wolves, Southampton and Everton could became unnecessarily high-pressure encounters.

Hence the need for a quick fix.

"We've got to start against Newcastle," Charlton said, stressing the demand for an instant remedy.

"We've done well against them at the Reebok before but we can't just just sit back and think it will happen. We've all got to pull together and keep plugging away so that we start getting those points we need.

"Like the gaffer says, we've got to dig out results now. It doesn't matter how we do it, whether it's backs against the wall or not, and it doesn't matter what it takes. We've got to get off that 34-points mark because it's really starting to annoy me now."

Charlton made it clear that the responsibility has to be a collective one.

"We have to say that it would be great if the Newcastle game ended nil-nil, because we've got to stop conceding goals.

"And it's not just the back five: the four of us and the goalkeeper: it's got to be the whole team. The gaffer's been quite honest about that by not just blaming the defence for the goals."

Charlton concedes that the Carling Cup disappointment had a significant affect on Wanderers' performance at Birmingham but believes the players have proved with performances against Chelsea and Arsenal that they have got the hangover symptoms out of their system. He just hopes they have not simply risen to the big occasions.

"We came back well against Arsenal but I just hope we haven't been playing that way because we had nothing to lose and were the underdogs. We need more than that."

Charlton admitted he may have got lucky when referee Graham Barber rejected penalty appeals when Arsenal sub Freddie Ljungberg went down under his challenge 15 minutes from the end at Highbury.

But he insisted the Gunners had no cause for complaint when a second appeal was turned down following Bruno N'Gotty's tackle on Thierry Henry.

"Mine could have gone either way," he said. "If he (Ljungberg) hadn't made the effort to put the ball in the net and just gone down, the ref might have had to give it.

"Bruno's was a fantastic tackle. In fact I thought the referee had a very good game. Graham Barber's one of the refs who likes us."