PHIL Parkinson is urging his troops to embrace the occasion of playing in front of a national TV audience at Villa Park tonight.

The off-colour Whites are in a real need for goals and wins – they have scored just once and taken only one point from five games since an impressive home victory against Derby County.

But the manager believes, if they can recreate the approach play from last Saturday’s defeat to Hull, all they need is better fortune and a killer instinct in the final third in order to increase Villa’s own woes.

“We’ll keep going and working hard on all aspects of our game, that’s all we’ve got to do, make sure our preparation is right,” he told The Bolton News. “I want the lads to go and enjoy playing at Villa Park where, let’s be fair, all the pressure will be on Villa – they’re a massive club that’s spent an incredible amount of money and they’re not having the greatest run themselves.

“We want to go there and make sure we play with a freedom, sort our structure out, stick to our game plan and enjoy the challenge.

“It should be a great atmosphere, in front of 35,000 and in front of the TV cameras.”

With the Championship match being screened live on Sky Sports Parkinson is determined his players finally get their just rewards from performances that have been far better than recent results suggest.

“It’s a good opportunity for us to go and improve on what we showed against Hull,” he said. “Because our play deserved more than what we got on the day and it’s up to us to make our good approach play count.

“Without a doubt we’re confident in our play, and in our football to get us into those situations and now we need to work and make the keeper make saves.

“We’ll keep believing because we’ve got good players, good quality and I’m confident we’ll show that on Friday night.

“The lads have been good, they’re concentrating on working hard during the week, that’s all you can ask for and I’m confident we’ll turn this corner.

“We know we’ve got players capable of doing that, it’s about sticking together, working hard on the training pitch, which we have done, and producing on Friday night – and I’m confident we will do.”