Karl Darlow insists that all of his Newcastle United teammates are fully focused on winning the Championship title in the next few weeks.
United are currently preparing for two crucial home games against Wigan Athletic and Burton Albion next week.
The Magpies draw against Birmingham before the international break saw them pull another point clear of chasers Brighton & Hove Albion and Huddersfield Town.
Newcastle now sit one point clear of Brighton and seven clear of Huddersfield going into the last eight games.
Promotion is a must
Despite the top two teams qualifying for automatic promotion, when asked by The Chronicle if he would be disappointed not to lift the trophy Darlow said: “Definitely – as a squad, everyone wants to win the league.
“We’d take second if it came down to it I suppose, but we know the goal is to be promoted and everybody wants to win the league. We have to see how it goes.”
The Englishman knows that the wins against Brighton and Huddersfield a few weeks ago were crucial and said: “If the results had gone the other way we’d be say here now thinking: We could have to break into the top two again.”
The stopper described the games against Brighton and Huddersfield as “real six pointers” and pinpointed the “mentality and quality” throughout the team as the reason for the wins.
“We can go away from home against top teams and beat them. We just need to make sure we continue to do that."
Defensive injuries
Darlow is expected to have a makeshift back four in front of him for the next two games as Ciaran Clark, DeAndre Yedlin and Grant Hanley all miss out through injury.
“You just get on with it. We have quality throughout the team like I have said,” admitted the 26-year-old.
“Whoever comes in will do just as good a job. We have to keep faith in whoever comes in and whoever plays.
“The manager has that too, as you can see from his rotation throughout the season.”