On-loan Boro defender Tom Flanagan feels that some of his team-mates may not have fully appreciated the situation they were in – until now.

Following defeats to relegation rivals Colchester and Shrewesbury, Boro will travel to Sheffield United tomorrow four points adrift at the foot of the Sky Bet League One table, with four games left to play.

“I think maybe a couple of people didn’t realise how bad the situation was and I think it’s dawning on a few people,” said the 22-year-old.

“It’s hitting a few people where it hurts and I think it’s time everybody just rolled their sleeves up ands got on with it now. It doesn’t matter how we win we just have to win.”

Following the 2-0 defeat away at Wolves earlier in the season, played out in front of nearly 18,000, manager Graham Westley said his side started the game “slightly in awe of the crowd and the environment.”

Since then Boro triumphed in front of a similar size crowd, albeit after another slow start, away at Bradford, and with the team likely to be walking out in front of 20,000 tomorrow night, Flanagan feels that the atmosphere will act very much as a positive for the Boro players.

“League One is becoming a big place, there’s some big teams,” said the MK Dons loanee.

“I obviously haven’t played for MK against Stevenage but I would rather go to somewhere like Sheffield United than Stevenage away because it’s a small ground, it’s tight, there’s very good fans whereas when you’re at those big grounds you always seem to produce something because it’s like playing, or as close as some people are or have got, to the Premier League, because that’s the setup that it is and you’ve got to treat it like that.

“You’ve got to grab it by both hands and be remembered by those 20,000.”

The Blades will come into the game following the 5-3 F.A Cup semi-final defeat to Hull on Sunday afternoon, but Flanagan doesn’t feel that that will have any bearing on the outcome come tomorrow night.

“I think what happens earlier on in the week doesn’t really matter,” he said.

“We’re not going to be going into the game thinking of the Colchester game; what they’ve done is what they’ve done.

“It would be a different situation maybe if they’d won the F.A Cup but its just another game, it was at a big ground (Wembley) but they’ve got players who have played their before so it’s not anything that’s in our mind and I don’t think it will be in their minds.”