North East double is crucial for Hull

Portsmouth was the first of three massive games for Hull. After a point against Pompey wins against Middlesbrough and Sunderland would go a long way towards guaranteeing our safety. They´re both in the bottom four and any points we can take off the teams around us will be hugely important.

We travel to Middlesbrough on Saturday and there´s a chance we could have George Boateng back for that game. He´s a very valuable player for us and we really could have done with his experience in the last few games. Even if he doesn´t play against his old club his Premier League knowledge will be vital in the end of season run-in.

I was glad to be back in action for Hull on the weekend and I was feeling pretty refreshed after the international break. I was on standby for the England squad but didn´t make the cut. It would have been great to be involved but it´s a buzz just to know you´re in contention. Things didn´t work out too badly as I had a thigh strain and a couple of other knocks at the time and the break gave me time to rest and get a bit of treatment.

There´s always a risk that players might come back injured after the international break but I think it´s a good thing for players to go away and play for their countries. It´s difficult in that the players didn´t get back until Thursday to prepare for Saturday´s game but every other club´s in the same boat. Players improve by playing international football so it can really benefit the club. We had quite a lot of boys involved. I didn´t see the match but I heard Caleb Folan had a great game for Ireland in Italy, for example.

I just want to mention Tony Gardner as well. It was really bad news for TG and for us when he injured his back and now he´s out for the rest of the season. He´s only played five or six games for us all year because of injury but you could see he was getting stronger and stronger and he´d been in good form in recent games. It´s just unfortunate he´s picked up another injury. Hopefully he´ll be back in time to get a good pre-season in before next year´s campaign.

It´s up to the rest of the squad to make sure that campaign is in the Premier League. I think we´ve shown so far to that we can cut it but we need to continue that right until the last game. The spirit in the camp is good and we´re all confident we can stay up.