April 9 2008

Mark Hudson

Crystal Palace defender MARK HUDSON believes his team-mates can keep their nerve in the battle for the play-offs.

Palace moved up to sixth place in the Championship following Monday night's hard-fought 2-1 win at Stoke City.

Next up is struggling Scunthorpe at home before two huge away clashes against promotion rivals Hull and Watford and the last game of the season at home to Burnley.

HUDSON is confident that with no expectation on the players' shoulders, it means they are more relaxed about the promotion challenge.

He said: "We've not got pressure. The only pressure we've got is from ourselves, no one was expecting us to get where we've got so we're going to enjoy it from here and give it our best shot.

"We need a bit of luck around this time of year and it's gone for us at Stoke so hopefully we can have a bit more of that in the next four games.

"We've got a good game at home now against Scunthorpe who are scrapping for their lives at the bottom, we know it's going to be a tough game but we'll prepare right and hopefully we can do what we did against Stoke.

"We've got Watford and Hull and they're going to be as tough as Stoke so we will prepare right but we have got to do Scunthorpe first."