CRYSTAL PALACE 1 WEST BROM 0
Milivojevic (pen 37)
Sam Allardyce believes West Brom need to win six of their remaining nine fixtures to avoid relegation.
The Baggies boss masterminded a trademark survival mission at Crystal Palace in the 2016-17 campaign, but looks unlikely to repeat the trick with his current team after losing at Selhurst Park.
West Brom went down to Luka Milivojevic’s 37th-minute penalty and their 20th Premier League loss of the season left them eight points adrift with only nine games left.
“If we win six out of nine, yeah (we can stay up),” Allardyce insisted.
“The closer it gets to the end and the point gap being bigger, the more the players can actually give it a go and release themselves maybe a bit more.
“And, hopefully, in front of goal be a bit better at finishing, but I really haven’t got too much criticism over their consistent level of performance.”
Wilfried Zaha won the spot-kick when his cross hit the arm of West Brom defender Darnell Furlong. After VAR had to check to see if the Palace attacker was onside, referee Simon Hooper was asked to use the pitchside monitor before he eventually awarded the penalty.
Allardyce added: “It was the same as the last eight or nine games where we are faltering in front of goal again and because we have faltered in front of goal, not only is it one point, we didn’t get any points.
“We gave away a silly penalty which we can ill-afford to do. It is a great shame because our chances created was there, but our finishing wasn’t up to scratch.”
Palace’s victory moved them up to 11th and on to 37 points, which has been enough to seal survival in each of the last four seasons.
Roy Hodgson won the battle of the former England managers, but is not getting carried away ahead of a threeweek break for his side.
The 73-year-old said: “We are looking for more points, of course we are. We are a lot safer thanks to this victory. Defeat would have had us looking over our shoulder a lot more.
“Last season, we went into that lockdown period and we couldn’t handle three games a week with the injuries we had and I had the worst run of my football management career. We are aware we don’t want that to happen again.”