AHEAD of today’s crucial match at Barnsley, Wanderers boss Phil Parkinson is calling for cool heads and fiery passion from his players to see the club to safety.

Victory at Oakwell would put the Whites five points ahead of the third-bottom Tykes but defeat – which would be Bolton’s fifth in a row – would see his side slip into the relegation zone, a point behind the Tykes and with inferior goal difference and a game fewer to play.

And, as the pressure rises in the run-in, Parkinson wants his men to balance fire and ice and focus on putting in the performance to take a huge step towards safety.

“A win would be crucial, it would create that five-point gap again and give us a huge lift,” said the Whites boss.

“With us, as a team, we can’t just concentrate on the outcome, thinking ‘we’ve got to get the points’, we have to concentrate on the process and what we need to do over the course of the game to get that win. I feel that over the last few games it’s almost like the anxiety and the determination to win maybe has detracted from what’s needed in the performance.

“We need to stay calm and concentrate on what we need to do. Part of that, obviously, is playing it like a cup final and putting in a full-on, committed performance.”

“Do I need to keep ramming home to the players how important the game is? They obviously know. They know how the league table stands, they know what’s at stake, we have got to make sure we have that fire in our belly but it’s got to be with ice running through our veins as well.

“That is the key in these games, it’s a cup-tie and we know the passion has got to be there as we roll our sleeves up but it’s got to be done with a calmness as well.”

With three games without a goal Wanderers have hit a rocky patch at the worst possible time.

Despite that, their fate remains in their own hands and Parkinson remains confident they can play their way out of trouble.

“We’d have taken being in the position where it’s in our hands in August or September, without a doubt,” he told The Bolton News. “The reason we’re lower than you’d expect is because of recent results. After the start we had, for our fate to be in our own hands with four games to go is an achievement in itself. Now we’ve got to finish the job off, and we’re capable of doing that.”