End of season form crisis! could be fatal!

This is my first ever thread, I was hoping I wouldn't be in need of advice....

But I have a problem which is stressing me out like hell, I'm playing as Ipswich Town 2010-11 season. I've made plenty of good cheap signings which has lead me to lead the Championship for a large majority of the season, there was one stage in the season where Nottingham Forest and me (Ipswich Town) were level on points, this being around 25 points above third place, It seems I was genuinely expecting to challenge for the title, however, recently both me (Ipswich town) and Nottingham Forest have gone on a dreadful run..... I unsurprisingly put it down to morale. The league cup final may be the result of this, I somehow managed to get to the Final of the league cup limping past numerous Premier league sides, in the final I was against Man City; 3 minutes from the end I was 3-2 up, then disaster struck, I ended up losing 4-3 in normal time! This consequently took a massive hit to my teams morale, and since then I have played six games in the league, gaining one point... 7 games remain in the season with Nottingham Forest top (2 points above me) and Sheffield United on a splendid run of from lurking 6 points behind me.......

I'm losing precious sleep, but this issue won't escape my mind so I had to make this thread, tactically I have tried to keep things consistent all season and have generally been very consistent in doing so, I play on fluid, as I have many Playmaker type players, recently though I have tried to adopt a far more defensive approach as I'm leaking incredible amounts of goals, 9 in the last three games to be precise, but this defensive approach doesn't seem to be working! So with 7 games left the worst case scenario is I will end up with a play off-spot: Not ideal..... In order to gain automatic promotion I will need a maximum of 5 Wins and a Draw from my last 7 games, on the condition that Sheffield United (3rd) win all their remaining 7 games, I'm worried sick, and my form is quite simply not improving, at the moment I feel I'm relying on Sheffield United to slip up as the win's clearly aren't coming for me....

Any Opinions or plain tactical advice would be much appreciated....

Cheers (Sorry about the lack of thumbnails)

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Give your players motivational team talks. Like "You can win here" or "pressure is off". That should loosen them up.

Also, if any players in particular are struggling with morale, have a private chat with them and tell them that you think they can improve. But do it in a nice way. It'll spur them on.

try different tactics and formation and try drop players if they not playing as they may of got complacent.

As Magicz said, use private chats to boost morale. Comment on their last match or recent form, just be honest and use common sense with your appraisal. My general rule of thumb is, in a form slump, anything over 7 is praiseworthy, and below 6.9 you can ask them for improvement and the vast majority of the time the response will be positive. Good luck!