Defender says healthy league position means Baggies can give QPR tie their all
BILLY Jones believes Albion’s healthy league position means they can fully focus on Saturday’s FA Cup third-round clash at QPR (ko 3pm) without any distractions.The Baggies lie seventh in the Barclays Premier League table on 33 points after 21 games, with their next top-flight fixture at Reading a week after the trip to Loftus Road.
And Jones is relishing the challenge of trying to book a place in Sunday’s fourth-round draw as Steve Clarke’s high-fliers look to put back-to-back defeats in the league behind them by repeating their 2-1 Boxing Day success on R’s soil.
“The gaffer has mentioned that we’re not safe in the league but we’re in a good position and we can go into Saturday looking to give it a go,” said the 25-year-old right-back.
“I don’t know what the gaffer’s plans are but we’re going to put out a team which we hope can win the game.
“We have to remain positive, the position we’re in is a good one, we just want to kick on from where we are.
“We want to get to 40 points and see how far we can go.
“But we need to get a good result on Saturday so that it’s not three defeats on the bounce.”
And Jones hopes a victory in the cup will give his team-mates the boost to get back on track in the league.
“With the type of squad we are, we concentrate on working hard, being organised and being hard to beat, that comes from Roy Hodgson’s time as well,” he added.
“I think we’ll go into the second half of the season with that and doing all the horrible things well again.
“Our creative players can score goals and we’ll remain positive and believe we can turn this into a great season.
“But we can’t take it for granted that we’re going to have a great season from the position we’re in at the moment.
“We’ll have little blips; we’ve had back-to-back losses then gone on to win games.
“We have to go to Reading and try and win.”