Seb: Been There, Done That

Sebastien Schemmel has no regard for the historical significance of being bottom of the Premiership at Christmas and says: 'I've escaped that one three times!'

The former Metz player is not worried that, since the inception of the Premiership, the wooden spoon team on Christmas day has always been relegated, and he reveals: "I have been at the bottom three times in France at Christmas and I have never gone down, so it is a stupid statistic and I don't like it.

"I am very confident; we just need to score and maybe Glenn will bring two strikers in, though I don't know who, and don't want to.

"If you are not scoring there is too much pressure."

He nonetheless sees victory as vital in both the Bolton game - and such a scenario would put the Trotters bottom of the pile on 25th December - and the Fulham home game as well on Boxing day.

"Now there are two important home games and we need not two, not three, but six points.

"I can't wait for the games because I have a lot to prove, but we need to score first."

Seb is looking to forget an unwanted personal statistic from Saturday's trip to Manchester United - his first own goal - and he adds: "I won't do a mistake like last week. I didn't see the ball, and it was a bad goal, but if that situation happens again I will do something else.

"It was the first own goal of my career and I was very disappointed for everyone. Maybe at 2-0 the game was not finished.

"But it summed up the game, and 3-0 was the right result, unfortunately.

"When you lose you are always disappointed but Manchester United were too good for us and with two goals in one minute the game was difficult.

"But we started well with some good passing though we had problems getting into their box.

"I was very surprised, and maybe we needed a better reaction after they scored the two in a minute. We didn't play as we had done the previous week.

"We need more players, though. Steve Lomas had to come back after five weeks and it is very difficult.

"The first objective is to be 17th, and if we win these two games we will come back very quickly.

"It is just my opinion but some players are not playing at their best level and you can't win with just eight or nine players.

"Maybe on Saturday everyone will be on fire which would make it easy to win, and I keep with me the thought that we are playing much better than one month ago."