Robert Green calls for Leeds United to thrive on '˜fun pressure'

The veteran goalkeeper, 37, has sampled the highs and lows of Championship fortune, achieving three promotions and a crushing play-off defeat in his long career, but is emphatic in his view that United players must enjoy the forthcoming sense of theatre.

In his unofficial mentor’s role as one of the elder statesman in a dressing room containing many young players, Green accepts that another key duty between now and season’s end will be to remind his team-mates that the pressure that they will be playing under is infinitely preferable to scrapping for your footballing lives at the foot of the table.

Green, outstanding in Tuesday’s 2-1 win over Bristol City, said: “It is one of my roles as one of the senior members of the team to relieve the pressure and explain to the lads that this is fun pressure. This is nice pressure to play under.

“After six games, we were in the bottom three so you would take being fifth in the league with 14 games to go.

“It is a really good position to be in and while we are desperately keen to take the chance, we really need to keep steady heads.

“We are in a 14-game season now where we have got a bit of a head start on the teams in seventh and below.

“It is also about trying to alleviate the pressure from the players and the young lads, and tell them that this is not like being in the bottom three. If you are not going to enjoy these run-ins, then there is no point taking part.

“Having been in much worse positions and scenarios after many, many years in football, that is what I have learnt.”

The midweek programme provided further conclusive proof of the ultra-competitive nature of the Championship, with Brighton and Derby suffering unexpected home results and Leeds and Huddersfield also handed scares.

For Green, some surprise developments were clearly far from unexpected and were a foreteller of things to come over the next few weeks or so.

He said: “You have been working constantly now for eight or nine months and the finishing line is getting closer.

“But a lot of the time, it is just going to be who can scrap out them points and the games which should not be hard become hard and the games that should be hard don’t.”