Nigel Pearson has issued a rallying cry to the Watford supporters ahead of a crucial game away at Crystal Palace this weekend.

The Hornets head coach knows the importance of having the fans behind his side as they prepare for the final ten games of the season, having hoisted them out of the bottom three with an unlikely victory over league leaders Liverpool last Saturday.

During that game, Pearson’s name was sung loudly by the home fans, who showed their appreciation for the job he has done in pulling them and their club back from the brink of relegation.

Now the boss wants his team to elicit that kind of atmosphere every game, by giving the Vicarage Road faithful performances to be proud of.

“I’m not going to say it’s not nice to be appreciated,” he said when asked about the fans’ song about him.

“But I think what’s important is that the crowd first and foremost, stay behind the team. We’re going to lean very heavily on them between now and the end of the season because hopefully we can them something that they recognise and can associate with as performances that they are proud of. That’s what it’s about. If we do that, then they will stay behind us and most importantly stay behind the players because the atmosphere last week here was incredible and let’s not underestimate what that can do in key moments in games, it’s very important for us.”

Pearson’s outlook remains focused on the task at hand and he is not dwelling too much on the win over Liverpool, impressive though it was.

Following that game, both Troy Deeney and Abdoulaye Doucoure spoke of the importance of building on the win this weekend at Crystal Palace and the head coach wants his whole team to stick to that ideology for the rest of the campaign.

“It’s important that the players have to have a sense of perspective, of where we are and what we’re trying to do,” he said.

“It’s important that they recognise that last week’s win was fantastic, and I’d rather have those three points than not, but it’s also really quite telling that the players understand that there are going to be lots of key moments from here on in and our focus has to be very much on trying to get our performance to such levels that will give us a much better chance of picking up points and securing more wins.

“It’s a very simple message, but it will remain the same from here on in until the end of the season.”

For this week, Pearson has been trying to replicate what he did in the run up to the Liverpool game, in order to try and get his team to reproduce what they managed on the pitch.

However, he also wants his players to try and enjoy the challenge of avoiding relegation in order to avoid the pressures that come with the battle.

“In terms of reproducing performances, you’ve got to try to emulate the behaviours that lead up to something like that,” he said.

“So what we work on as a team is very very important. Our recovery and then preparation is also very very important, but when players are involved in relegation battles, sometimes the psychological pressures can be an inhibitor and one of my main jobs is to try and keep the players free enough in their minds to be able to go out there and enjoy it as well because that’s something that we must never lose sight of, that it’s important to enjoy the challenge as well as meeting it head on.”