Hull City midfielder Nick Barmby wants the team to end their miserable away record by getting more physical with the opposition. The Premier League strugglers travel to Goodison Park on Saturday to face Everton - over a year after their last victory on the road.

The Tigers veteran is confident of ensuring top flight football next season, but he admits they need to get tougher away from the KC Stadium.

"Our home form has been pretty good but we know we haven't picked up enough points away from home," Barmby told The Hull Daily Mail.

"We need to be harder to beat. Sometimes we've been a little gung-ho and left ourselves open. That's not something we can afford to do against Everton.

"We have to be compact and make life difficult for them.

"We have to stop them from having time on the ball. When we play well we get right into the faces of our opposition.

"We need to go into every game bang at it and if that's the case we stand a very good chance at staying up."

The Tigers suffered back-to-back defeats at Blackburn and West Ham.

"The last two results have been disappointing, especially when you consider the results before that," said Barmby.

"We didn't really come to terms with the physicality of Blackburn - which is not like us - and then at West Ham we were always on the back foot after conceding early on.

"They were two defeats where we never really imposed ourselves on the game or got in the opposition's faces.

"We're still looking forward to the challenge of the next 11 games. We know that if we play like we know we can, we'll be fine."