Club News

McAuley defends 'honest' team-mates

Veteran remains focussed on half century

GARETH McAuley insists his ‘honest’ and hardworking team-mates are doing their utmost to get Albion back on track.

The Baggies were beaten 1-0 by Leicester on Saturday, but remain eighth in the table on 44 points, despite a fourth successive defeat.

And McAuley says Tony Pulis’ men remain focussed on reaching 50 points for the first time in the Premier League. 

“It’s one of them things that gets slung around in football,” McAuley replied when asked how the players deal with accusations they are ‘on the beach’.

“It annoys the players and the people in the dressing room.

“If anything, I have never been in a more honest dressing room. 

“We’re still running the same distances in the games - I don’t know why it’s not happening for us.

“It’s easily said [that Albion are on the beach] but the truth of the matter is we’re still trying very hard and, if we get a little rub of the green, hopefully we’ll get some results on the board. 

“Let me tell you, we worked hard, we didn’t have a game last weekend – we were in and we were working hard.

“We definitely haven’t taken our foot off the pedal.

“Hopefully, with four games to go we can finish on a positive.

“We weren’t just ticking over in training, it was good hard sessions, almost like a mini pre-season.

“It certainly replicated a good hard game and there were some really tough sessions.”

“We need to keep going and keep trying to get through it.

“We want 50 points and it feels like we’ve been saying that for ages now.

“We were stuck on 40 points, got a couple of results, and as a group we’re determined to achieve that.

“We have some tough games coming up but we need to get those results to finish the season on a positive.”