Sean McAuley is looking to ease the pressure on some of his players this week ahead of the Boxing Day clash against league leaders Newcastle United.

The caretaker manager has reviewed the 2-0 defeat to Swansea and believes his team need to shoulder their responsibilities on the pitch collectively rather than as individuals if they are to reverse the recent run of poor results.

Speaking to Wednesday Player on Monday, McAuley said: "I feel a few of the squad are low on confidence. I'm going to speak to the team this week. A few of the younger players are concentrating too much on their own performance which adds pressure to them. We need to stop worrying so much on individual performances, because if you win and have a poor game you can pat yourself on the back because you're a winning footballer.

"What I saw on Saturday were players who were concentrating on their own performances when that thing should come naturally. We need to get back into the team focus where the responsibility is shared. If one or two do have a bad game then the other nine or ten will carry them through."

McAuley is keen to stress that results need to improve urgently though. The visit of Newcastle will mark the halfway point in the season and Wednesday need to dramatically increase their win rate as soon as possible.

"We've won four games all season and I've mentioned that we need to win another ten to definitely make us safe this season," McAuley said.

"A lot of clubs in this division will be in and around where we are. For us to get 52 points we need to get ten wins and four draws. The earlier we get a positive response the longer we've got to turn things around. We can't dress the fact up that we need points and we need them as quickly as possible."

"We all believed that this group of players would take us into the top ten and that's realistic. We all have to be in this together, even the players that haven't played much this season. We all believed that this team would be in the top ten but we need results to mirror that of a top ten team for the remainder of the season."

Sean also expects to make changes to his starting line-up for Boxing Day but he will not rush into the decisions as to where those changes may be made:

"People play on merit but also on what we think the team needs in that individual game. There will be changes. I felt that during training everybody was in a positive frame of mind and I think we saw that in the first 35 minutes of the Swansea game. People were up for it and I think I'd have got that from anyone who would have started. It's important that the players are in a good place psychologically and I hope for a good performance from the players who are coming in for the Newcastle game."