Baggies aim to replicate cup win over Hull
ALBION head coach Alan Irvine believes the “fine margins” can turn in favour of his team as they head for a Barclays Premier League crunch at Hull tomorrow.
The two teams meet at the wrong end of the table seeking to put a worrying sequence of results behind them – Albion have suffered four successive defeats and tomorrow’s opponents are without victory in seven games.
Irvine scouted Hull at Goodison Park on Wednesday where they stopped their own four-game losing sequence with a 1-1 draw.
The Baggies, meanwhile, were still cursing the football fates which conspired to leave them empty-handed against West Ham despite a second-half assault which Irvine maintains should have brought victory.
It hasn’t stopped some fans registering their dissent but Irvine takes it all on the chin and is convinced a turn of fortune is within touching distance.
He said: “I understand the way things are in this job. It’s a short-term culture. If it’s not Alan Pardew getting stick then it’s somebody else.
“If it’s me at this particular time then hopefully I will get to the situation that Alan is in now. We exist on such fine margins and we are not far off getting the results we all want.
“I don’t think people can say we’ve been miles away. That’s not what I feel and it’s not what the players feel as Joleon Lescott made clear this week as well.”
The Baggies head coach was particularly grateful to chairman Jeremy Peace for some words of encouragement when the pair crossed paths at the training ground yesterday.
“I spoke with the chairman on Thursday and he was fine, brilliant,” added Irvine. “I have had nothing but great support from him from the outset.
“I had to go to see him about something else and we had a good chat for about 15 minutes about a range of subjects.
“You win a game in this job and after a few minutes it’s ‘Right, who’s next?’ You lose a game and it is still with you when you start the next one.
“It’s not nice but it is part of the job and you accept that. All I can do is do what I did last time when we turned things around earlier in the season.”