Stoke manager Tony Pulis insists he is not shaken by the intensifying scrap for survival.
A run of just one win in 14 games - with three defeats in a row - has left the Potters perilously placed just three points above the relegation zone.
Pulis has overseen steady progress since the club's promotion to the top flight in 2008 but insists he has the experience to handle this term's downturn.
Recalling the start of his first spell at the club, when safety in the second tier was still in doubt on the final day of the 2002/03 season, Pulis said: "If it means going right to the wire, it will go to the wire.
"It won't be the first time I have had to go there to get the job done.
"The first year, keeping the club up in the last game of the season against Reading was an enormous feat and an achievement that is underestimated by people.
"If we hadn't stayed up I'm not sure what position the club would have been in now. That was when the club was really on its knees and that was a massive game.
"But we are playing for bigger stakes now and we are desperately keen to stay in the Premier League."
Stoke travel to the apparently doomed QPR this weekend anxious to improve on an away goalscoring record that has seen them strike a paltry nine times and, with five goals conceded in the last two games, Pulis has multiple concerns.
"It has been both boxes where we have struggled," he added. "Lately we have given poor goals away and we have got to stop doing that.
"At the other end there have been games where we have had great opportunities and not taken them.
"You do struggle if you struggle in both boxes. We have got to eradicate that
and make sure we get the points we need to stay up. We need a break, we need to turn it around. We have to stick together."
