Peterhead captain Scott Brown reckons the Blue Toon need to win all four of their games before the split to finish in the top half of League One.
The Balmoor side sit seventh in the third tier after last Tuesday’s 2-0 home defeat against Clyde.
Jim McInally’s men are only a point adrift of fourth-place Partick Thistle ahead of tonight’s trip to Forfar Athletic.
Peterhead will follow tonight’s clash with a difficult run-in, with games against Partick, East Fife and leaders Falkirk before the league splits in two.
Brown admitted last week’s defeat has put the pressure on his side ahead of the split.
He said: “We have six points out of nine since we came back, which isn’t a bad start.
“But the game against Clyde is one of those that we need to win, if we are going to finish in the top half when the league split comes around.
“We shot ourselves in the foot against Clyde.
“I think we need to win four games now if we are to finish in the top half.
“We have tough games coming up, starting against Forfar, and we need to win. It is as simple as that.”
Brown wants the Blue Toon to show their ruthless side against Forfar after they enjoyed plenty of possession against Clyde but struggled to create decent opportunities.
He said: “It was a really frustrating game.
“I thought we started well but we were a bit toothless. It felt like we could have kept playing for much longer and not scored.
“We looked all right at the back but we didn’t create much going forward.
“We can’t afford to do that when a team comes to our ground and sits off the ball like that.
“It is something we need to work on as it was the same when we lost 1-0 at home against Forfar (in November).
“Teams sometimes come to sit in and look to nick a goal.
“When Clyde scored against us it didn’t feel like we were going to score.
“It was one of those nights.
“I just don’t think we clicked going forward. We had a lot of the ball, but it never clicked.
“We were moving it side to side and then for some reason we stopped doing that.
“I don’t understand why we stopped because they couldn’t get out of their own half and we were tiring them out.
“You need to be patient when a team sits in like that and it may take you until 85 minutes to get the goal, but if you keep the ball they aren’t going to score.”
Forfar sit bottom of League One, but head into tonight’s match on the back of a morale-boosting Scottish Cup win.
The Station Park side defeated Edinburgh City on penalties to set up a last-16 tie at home to Dundee United.
Peterhead, by contrast, had a free weekend and Brown hopes the rest will be beneficial ahead of a hectic end to the season.
He said: “It was a hard couple of weeks after we came back, but we have had a week off now.
“We need to work hard and be ready to beat Forfar on Tuesday.
“We would rather have played in the Scottish Cup, but sometimes these things work out for the better.
“Hopefully we will have a couple more players back and we can get the win we are looking for, so we can start looking up the way.
“It’s a massive game because we don’t want to get dragged into the bottom half. First and foremost we need to stay in the league.
“It is finely balanced.”
