Jonas Olsson: Top ten just got tougher for West Brom

Jonas Olsson admits Albion have made it tougher to secure a top-half finish after their Norwich setback.

A win over the Canaries would have catapulted the Baggies over Chelsea and into the top 10.

Yet the 1-0 defeat, courtesy of Robbie Brady's second-half strike, kept them 11th, while wins for Southampton and Stoke also pushed them further to the fringes of the chase for a Europa League place.

Albion have a game in hand of both teams but not Chelsea, who go to rock-bottom Villa next. Liverpool, who are in ninth, have meanwhile played a game less than the Baggies, as have Everton, who sit a point and place behind Pulis's men.

Defender Olsson insists reaching 40 points remains the primary target but conceded they had lost ground.

"Everyone's said in interviews and in the match programme that 40 points is still the first target and we're not there yet," said the Swede.

"We have to get there first and hopefully once there we'll set new targets.

"It's very disappointing because we want to push higher up the table, there were three or four teams that are on 43 or 44 points that we wanted to get involved with.

"Now, it's a bit harder to get there."

Albion need to take 11 points from their final eight games to reach 50 points for the first time in a Premier League season and beat their previous best haul of 49, achieved under Steve Clarke during the 2012/13 campaign.

They had gone into Saturday's game having taken 10 points from their previous four games but Olsson insists the near fortnight break between their 1-0 win over Manchester United and the Norwich loss was no excuse for their lacklustre showing.

"I don't think (the break affected us)" he said. "I think when you're playing well you have momentum and you want to play more games.

"But no excuses, we've been training well, we've been keeping fit. It just wasn't to be. We didn't play very well.

"I thought we were poor, think we started the game quite well, first 30 minutes thought we had a few chances and played quite well. The second half was disappointing."

Norwich had gone into the game without a win since January 2 and desperate for points to aid their survival bid. Olsson admits that, at this stage of the season, there are few easy games.

Albion travel to similarly relegation-threatened Sunderland next while games at title-chasing Arsenal and Tottenham are also on the horizon on a fixture list which sees them play four of the next five away from home.

"This time of the season it's hard to play any team," said Olssson. "It's hard to play Norwich because they're fighting for their lives, it's hard to play Leicester because they're fighting for the title. We have been playing well but Saturday wasn't our day."