With their Premier League status hanging by a thread, Middlesbrough’s players have been accused of not caring about the situation they find themselves in. In the build up to today’s game against Hull, Chief Sports Writer Scott Wilson met Andrew Taylor and discovered that the truth is rather different.

FOOTBALLERS, so the common conception goes, don’t care.

Closeted away in their mock-Tudor mansions, with their Bentleys on the driveway, the millionaires who play the beautiful game are perceived as having little in common with the working-class supporters who watch it.

So while Middlesbrough fans have spent the last week in a state of nervous anxiety ahead of this afternoon’s relegation showdown with Hull, the general impression on Teesside is that the players will have been adopting a rather more relaxed approach, secure in the knowledge that their contracts will be honoured no matter what happens in the final seven games of the season.

A fair dichotomy? Allow full-back Andrew Taylor to present a markedly different view.

“We do care,” said Taylor, who accepts that Middlesbrough will be as good as down if they fail to claim all three points this afternoon. “I don’t know how much more we can show that.

“People will have their own views on what we should be doing, but as a group, we do not want to be losing. We don’t want to be in the position we’re in and it hurts us just as much as anybody else.

“It’s hard to come to terms with and, from a personal point of view, there’s nothing worse than looking at the table. It makes me feel physically sick when I look at the table and see the position we’re in.

“It really is horrible because, as a footballer, you have your personal pride.

When you’re in this sort of position, a lot of that pride is dented. You feel embarrassed about what you’ve allowed the club to get itself into.

“As a young squad, it’s been difficult to deal with.

I’ve never really had to handle anything like this before. If Sky Sports or Match of the Day is on with the league table, I have to switch it off. I honestly feel physically sick. I can’t think of anything I hate more than that.”

Not exactly the response of someone who could not care less about the predicament in which Middlesbrough find themselves.

Taylor’s professional pride means he is unable to switch off from the ongoing relegation battle, but even if he wanted to escape from the reality of this most difficult of seasons, his ties to the region would make it all but impossible.

Like another seven members of the Boro squad that is likely to face Hull today, Taylor was born and bred in the North-East – Hartlepool to be exact – and the routines of his everyday life rule out any possibility of ignoring the crisis that has gradually engulfed the Riverside Stadium in the last two months.

From the petrol station to the pizza parlour, the supermarket to the cinema, Middlesbrough supporters lie in wait, but rather than actively avoiding conversation in recent weeks, Taylor has made a point of seeking out difficult debates.

He wants to know what the supporters feel, and appreciate exactly what relegation would mean to them. Some footballers might exist in a bubble, but the 22-year-old defender is desperate to remain in the real world.

And today, as Boro entertain a Hull side seven points ahead of them in the table, he will hope to draw inspiration from the tales he has heard.

“It’s not always what you want to hear,” said Taylor.

“But sometimes I think it’s good to have it in your face because you’re not left in any doubt about what all of this means.

“Maybe I’m a little bit lucky that I’m not actually living in Middlesbrough, but there are plenty of Middlesbrough fans in Hartlepool and they’ve not exactly been reluctant to let me know how they’re feeling.

“It tends to be when I’m going out for some food – people come over and talk about the position we’re in – but I’m not someone to shy away from that, and I think it would be the wrong thing to do.

“I’d never not speak to people, because they’re the supporters who pay my wages and their views are the most important at the football club. If people come up to me, I’ll speak to them, and just from speaking to the fans, it doesn’t take long to get a feeling of how much it means to everyone that this club stays in the Premier League.

“It spurs you on a bit.

There’s nothing more inspirational than seeing how much hurt there would be if we were to get relegated.”

Inspiration is one thing, though, consideration is clearly another. This afternoon’s game will call for thumping tackles and towering headers, but it will also require an element of composure in possession, and on the back of a run of one win from 19 league matches, that can often be the hardest thing to produce.

“Football’s strange because when things are going well and you’re confident, you don’t think about what you’re doing,”

said Taylor, who accepts that Boro might have to introduce an element of “nastiness” into their play following defeats to Stoke and Bolton. “You just go on to the field and do it.

Everything comes naturally, everything flows, and it’s like tackling and passing are second nature.

“When you’re not so confident and things aren’t going right, all of that goes out of the window. Your mind plays funny games with you, and that easy ball all of a sudden becomes difficult. That’s the biggest challenge you have to overcome.

“The coaches and managers have been dealing with that, and they’ve been trying to keep us confident and get us back to a position where we can play naturally instead of everything being forced. It’s down to us now to put that into practice.”