PETERSFIELD Town chairman Graeme Moir has played down the significance of tonight’s battle of the basement sides at Love Lane by saying ‘defeat won’t relegate us.’

The Rams entertain Histon, the only side below them in the Division 1 Central table, with some building the clash up into a do or die match in terms of the East Hampshire club’s chances of escaping the drop.

But Moir believes his club’s season does not hinge on this one game and defeat wouldn’t mean their Southern League days are numbered.

“A lot of people are saying if we lose this one then we are done for but I don’t see it that way at all,” said Moir.

“There is an easy way and a hard way out of the situation we currently find ourselves in. The easy way is to win the games against the sides around you towards the bottom end of the table – a win tonight and then another three points against Beaconsfield at home on Saturday suddenly changes the whole picture.

“If we lose games like this one then all that means is we have to do things the hard way – which means going to places like Royston and having to get three points against stronger teams in the division.

“We have been abysmal at home in the league all season so far but we have three home games in a row – against Histon, Beaconsfield and Fleet – which are all games we need to be looking to win if we are going to escape finishing in the bottom two places in the division.

“Wins in those games would be massive for us but we need to be careful that we don’t turn any of these games into win or bust scenarios at this stage of the season – its only December and after tonight there are still 19 games to go whatever happens.”

Moir believes his club need to realise they are in a fight now to stay up and that they need to start scrapping and battling to get points on the board.

He added: “We are good enough to get out of this situation – we showed that again on Saturday despite losing 3-1 at AFC Dunstable.

“We were in the game for long periods but we need some more strikers in the club quickly to give us more attacking options going forward and we have to cut out periods of self-destruction we keep having – we can be fully in control of games one minute and then all of a sudden we concede two or three goals in as many minutes and its game over for us.

“Histon will come here fighting for their lives – scrapping for everything to try and get that win that gets them off the bottom of the table. What we have to do now is match teams with our own fight and desire to win – if we can start doing that the results will come for us very quickly.”