GONE TO POT
CHRIS BRUNT admits West Brom’s fate is out of their hands – but has vowed to make sure no one downs tools in their desperate relegation scrap.
Brunt was back in the starting line-up after apologising for a furious dressing-room rant in which he questioned manager Alan Pardew’s tactics following the defeat to Huddersfield.
But while there were some small signs of improvement, Troy Deeney’s late winner left them bottom of the table, eight points from safety with nine games left.
It is seven years since they last lost five Premier League games in a row and it’s now just three wins in 38 top-flight games.
Massive
No wonder Brunt admits the Baggies need favours from the teams around them to pull off what even he acknowledges would be the greatest of Great Escapes.
Brunt said: “It would be easy to chuck the towel in but with nine games to go you can’t do that. You’ve got to try. But things aren’t going to be in our hands now.
“We need snookers from other results too. It’s up to us to go out there and keep working hard.
“I don’t think we’ve got a massive amount of confidence, to be totally honest. Results breed confidence and we haven’t had many results this year. Confidence is obviously a big issue for us.
“It’s a difficult situation. It hurts. It would be easy to throw in the towel but we have to reassure everybody that we’ll definitely not be doing that.”
Brunt insists his side played their best game for weeks at Vicarage Road and still have the fight to win their battle – but they managed just two shots on target and could have lost by more.
He said: “We played better. I don’t think anybody could point any fingers. You can’t give up. Would it be the greatest of Great Escapes? Yeah it would.
“You hear a lot about it at our place because of what’s happened before. We’ve given ourselves a mountain to climb but you’ve got to keep trying.”
With Pardew taking the majority of the flak for the past few weeks, Brunt also believes it’s time for his players to take a long, hard look at themselves.
He said: “The way football is it falls on the manager’s head but you go after a game and look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’ve done enough.
“I think for a lot of the season the majority of us have been looking at each other and saying we haven’t played well enough. As a team you share the responsibility equally.”
Watford won off the pitch as well as