Jack Cork says he hopes that Southampton can climb the Premier League table during the final six weeks of the season.
Much has been made of the four-point cushion Cork and his teammates have from the Premier League drop-zone, but they are only five behind tenth-placed Fulham.
If Saints can record a second successive win by beating Cork's former side Chelsea on Saturday, they will almost certainly climb the top-flight standings.
And Cork says he is relishing the possibility of emerging from the end-of-season shake-up strongly and leapfrogging some of the sides immediately above him and his teammates.
"It would be good for us if those teams start thinking they are safe," the midfielder told Saints Player ahead of this weekend's game.
"If they start relaxing we will be right behind them nipping at their heels and trying to drag them back in.
"It would ease the pressure on us a little bit if a few more teams got dragged into a similar position. That's our aim, and hopefully we can do that."
The recent international break means this match will be Saints' first since that impressive 3-1 win over Liverpool two weeks ago.
Similarities have been drawn between the manner of that victory and the side's previous one, which came courtesy of another 3-1 scoreline against champions Manchester City five weeks earlier.
After that win, Saints suffered back-to-back defeats to Newcastle and then Queens Park Rangers – something Cork is desperate to ensure doesn't happen again.
"We had such a good result against Manchester City and then QPR came here and we lost," he warned. "That's keeping us on our toes.
"We're in a great situation at the minute, but we need to make sure we don't think anything is done just yet. We have to make sure we try to win as many games as we can.
"Hopefully we'll have a good run-in and more performances like those against Liverpool and Manchester City.
"We've had two weeks without a game, but they've been a good couple of weeks," continued the 23-year-old.
"We've done a bit on tactics and got our gym work in, and we've also managed to train with a few of the younger lads as well. It's been productive.
"The downside is that we could have done with another game straight after Liverpool because we were on such a high, but it's given us a good chance to prepare for the last couple of months of the season."
This will be the third time Cork has faced his former employers this season, after the Blues won 5-1 at St Mary's in the third round of the FA Cup before a 2-2 draw in the league at Stamford Bridge soon afterwards.
"I'd been looking forward to playing Chelsea for a while and then we got them in the FA Cup and got hammered!" he said.
"It wasn't really the best debut against Chelsea, but then we put in a great performance at their place.
"It was a great comeback from two-nil down, but hopefully we won't need to be in that situation this time around if we get right into them from the start."
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