BILLY Davies still believes four wins will be enough to secure Championship safety for Nottingham Forest – but warned a massive improvement will be required to secure them.

And he demanded that his players show more battle and fight in their remaining seven matches, starting with the visit of high-flying Wolves on Saturday.

"It will be something like that. But we have seven games to go for us to get wins and we have to show a better manner of competing in games," he said.

"We are fighting for our lives, scrapping for everything – and we have to start playing that way.

"I am not used to losing, I will say that. In the four years I have been in management, I have not been used to this. So stepping into this situation, in the position the club is in, has been frustrating.

"We do not have the opportunity to work with these players, there is so much work to do that we can only do in the summer.

"Then we can say we are ready for things, because we will have done the work. But we have come in at the time we have and it has been difficult.

"We didn't manage to do what we wanted on Saturday, but we will keep working."

Goalkeeper Paul Smith, who won the golden gloves award in League One last season, after keeping an array of clean sheets, again found himself criticised for a number of errors his manager felt contributed to Burnley goals.

"I keep saying that the marking card of League One does not matter. It is the marking card in the Championship that matters," said Davies.

"This is a different league, a different style of play and a different strength of character that is required.

"When you are fighting for your lives you need a certain type of player. What has been happening in the last few weeks is that we have clearly seen one or two players letting us down and one or two players who need to understand that, when they are being paid to do a certain job, they have to do it.

"They are not doing it.

"I am not going to criticise individuals. I have known since January what we need to change. I know the way we need to go. But this is a collective criticism.

"There are individuals who are letting us down and we need to sort that out."

Davies said Forest must bring a halt to their habit of conceding goals early in games and just before and after half-time. "It doesn't matter we have a home game to come now," he said. "What we cannot do is keep conceding the goals we are conceding. We can't.

"We had to reshuffle (the defence) and that has a massive effect on you, when you lose players.

''But you expect the ones who come in to play with responsibility. I am not surprised by the situation. I identified in January what was required. Unfortunately we find ourselves in this position.

"We had to bring in loan players and this is what we have got. It is a mental strength, it is a desire – it is the ability to come back from going behind and show a reaction.

"We have a young, inexperienced team that is clearly struggling to handle the demands of the Championship.

"We have seen a young side who do not know how to handle going a goal down. Their heads and their shoulders go down. But that is what you get with a young group.

"We are asking youngsters to do jobs that men should be doing in this league.

"Look at the experience they had in their side. We know where we are, we are not kidding anyone. We know what we have got and you can clearly see why we are where we are.

"The chopping and changing doesn't help. Burnley played the same team as they had in midweek and the inconsistency doesn't help us.

"But we will get our heads down in training, we will look at the video to identify the problems and we will expect the players to work hard."

Forest will have to prepare for the weekend without on-loan midfielder Isaiah Osbourne, who is likely to be ruled out after limping off late in the game at Turf Moor.

"Isaiah has a groin injury, but that is the demands of first-team football," said Davies.

"That is what happens with loan players when they find themselves playing a different tempo of football, a different kind of football."