Martin Taylor believes there will be more teams than usual in the relegation shake-up this season. He said: "This season it definitely seems to be a little more open.

''You have still got the same look at the top - Man United and Chelsea - but apart from that there's nobody putting any sort of run together.

"You look at the other weekend with us and Burnley, promoted teams, going to two of the Premier League bit hitters and getting creditable draws.

"Obviously Portsmouth at the start of the season were doing poorly, now they are starting to climb the table.

"It's going to be really tight. I think there's going to be a good 12, 13 teams trying to consolidate their place in the league this season."

The centre half continued said: "We definitely deserve more points than we've got. That's not a worrying thing at the minute, but you do hope to get that luck in some of the games coming up.

"Liverpool was a prime example, had we been a bit more fortunate in that one, we would have been climbing the table a little.

"But I think overall we have acquitted ourselves really, really well and we've given ourselves a good chance in the first part of the season.

"We need to keep playing the way we are and hopefully we will be OK."