Exeter's players will be consumed by anxiety when they walk out at the other St James Park against Albion on Saturday.

They are desperate for a result and will be prepared to resort to desperate measures to achieve it.

One player in the Albion dressing room knows exactly how it feels to be haunted by the threat of relegation. Kerry Mayo was in the side which four seasons ago pulled off a miraculous escape from the drop.

The leftback believes the Seagulls can exploit the tension in the Exeter camp to keep their promotion challenge on track.

"It's not a nice feeling being down there," said Mayo. "It puts a helluva lot of pressure on you.

"You are not thinking about promotion, you're thinking about survival.

"It affects you mentally. You know you have got to start grinding out results, whether it is a good or an ugly style of play. It doesn't matter how you get them."

The evidence suggests Exeter will opt for the ugly route. Their player-boss Noel Blake, a team-mate of Albion manager Micky Adams at Leeds, is not exactly a shrinking violet.

The next-to-bottom Grecians, two points and four games ahead of Carlisle, had TEN players booked in a 2-0 defeat at Withdean just before Christmas.

Albion goal ace Bobby Zamora said: "I just got kicked to pieces."

An automatic £1,000 fine from the FA seems to have made little difference.

Exeter's captain Chris Curran was sent-off after only five minutes for elbowing in last Saturday's last-gasp Devon derby defeat at Torquay.

Adams said: "Sometimes when a team is struggling discipline goes out of the window through the frustration of losing games.

"Their lads were definitely up for it down here before Christmas. They were a little over-exuberant at times, but you would expect Noel Blake's team to be competitive. He isn't the most subtle of players himself!

"I've got players that can look after themselves, so I am not worried about it."

Adams bumped into his former defender Jamie Campbell in a motorway service station last Saturday on the way back from watching Cardiff's stormy win against Plymouth.

Campbell missed the Torquay match. You've guessed it, he was suspended after accumulating five bookings. He is hoping to regain his place in a team which he insists is not trying to kick its way out of trouble.

"If you look at it you might think we are favourites to go down, but you wouldn't think that if you saw the football we've been playing," Campbell said.

"Since the Brighton game we have played really well. We are creating a lot of chances and not getting the results we deserve."

Campbell is eager to banish the memory of a miserable return to Withdean.

He deflected a Gary Hart cross into his own net for Albion's clinching second goal.

"It hit my toe and flew past the keeper," Campbell said. "It was unfortunate for me, especially at 1-0 down, because you have always got a chance at that stage.

"Brighton looked a good, strong team that night. They were well organised, as you would expect, but played football as well."

Albion have gone through a strange period since then, two wins, a draw, a defeat and three postponements.

Hart's eyes were glued to the telly last Saturday to keep abreast of rivals' results.

"It doesn't feel as if we've had a match for ages," he said. "Exeter are fighting for their lives and sometimes those games are the hardest. But I think everyone here at the moment is positive enough and strong enough to go down there and do a job."

So does Mayo who, along with fellow fullback Paul Watson, knows another booking will rule him out of the Cardiff showdown at Withdean next month.

"I'm just happy with the way we are playing at the moment," Mayo said. "We're flying high and there's confidence throughout the squad.

"Exeter may panic if they fall behind and you cannot afford to give any team sympathy.

"We are not going there to play for a draw and hope for the best. We're going there to win."