Paul Lambert has confessed that Stoke City have their work cut out to remain in the Premier League, but insists that his players will not stop fighting.
Top-flight action resumes next weekend with the Potters sitting 19th in the table and three points adrift of safety, having won just one of their eight matches since Lambert arrived in mid-January.
Despite the negativity around the bet365 Stadium following the 2-1 loss to Everton last time out, the man in charge believes that it is still all to play for as his side prepare to face Arsenal on Sunday afternoon.
Asked how important the game is, Lambert is quoted by Sky Sports News as saying: "Every bit as big as the Huddersfield game when I first came in. I view them as important as everything else. It is not down beat or anything like that but I am going to fight. As long as you fight you have a chance and that's what you do, you keep fighting for it.
"It is a tough game but I know we are more than capable of winning and that's the mindset I'll have when we go down there. It is a really tough game, the next couple of games are tough, but I can see that right through the seven games. But we are in with a fight.
"Obviously nobody wants to be in that position but we should have had more points than we've got. We've had no luck which you need in football and as a team, you need a bit of luck to go your way. Individual errors have cost us in certain games but the performance level of the team I couldn't ask anymore from them."
Stoke face Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool in three of their remaining seven games.