Maik Taylor has admitted that Blues have to show their mettle at Fulham on Saturday, no two ways about it.

Blues go to Craven Cottage with an away record that reads four straight defeats, with their last win 12 league and cup games ago – Alex McLeish’s opening match in charge, at Spurs on December 2.

“It is not good, our away from” said the goalkeeper.

“We are in this situation because of our own doing. If we’ve got anything about us, we will come out fighting and come out all guns blazing, roll up our sleeves and give it everything we’ve got for the last two games now.

“We are all in it together, we are 11 out there fighting for the cause, we all mean well but unfortunately teams have got at us and found it easy to score.”

That has been a habitual problem for Blues.

Apart from the Villa debacle, they have never been ripped apart. But they cannot keep clean sheets – just three all season, the worse mark in the Premier League along with Derby County.

And they have struggled to keep hold of leads.

“Sometimes we get into good positions but when a team has a good spell against us, which ostensibly every team will have because they are top quality in the Premier League, we just don’t seem able to shut up shop and weather the storm,” said Taylor.

“Liverpool was a real sickener. Seb Larsson has come up with a great free-kick again and we find ourselves 2-0 up and all well and good. It looked as if we could go on and get a third.

“But we’ve again given a soft goal away, as has been the case for most of the season. Teams don’t really have to work very hard to score past us.

“The legs became very tired, we sat back and invited them onto us and they are a very good side and punished us late on.”

Taylor added: “Fulham’s a massive game. They have their tails up, but we will work extremely hard this week, look to sort a few things out, and we will be ready.”