Captain Chris Brunt orders West Brom to tighten up

The Baggies will end their 11-day fixture break with a top-flight trip to Goodison Park tonight.

And the skipper says they must eradicate the "sloppy" defending that has blighted them in recent weeks.

The Baggies, who are without a clean sheet in their last eight games, went 2-0 down at home to Villa in the 2-2 draw a week after conceding three goals in the final eight minutes to lose 3-2 at Reading in their previous Premier League outing.

Brunt said: "We're going to have to stop conceding sloppy goals.

"In the game at Reading and last week against Villa, we haven't been good enough defensively in periods of the game.

"It's something we're going to have to work on. We've had a bit of a break between games to do that and I'm sure, come the next game, we'll be looking forward to it.

"The first half against Villa wasn't good enough but we had a good go in the second half and got our rewards for it."

The Baggies could welcome back Claudio Yacob at Goodison Park tonight after his return from a hamstring injury lasted just 36 minutes against Villa before he was forced off by a shoulder problem.

But Brunt believes the Argentina international's absence is no excuse for poor defending.

"It's been pretty stop-start for Claudio over the last few weeks," said the captain.

"He's tried to come back a couple of times and his hamstring hasn't been right.

"We got him back in training then he came back on Saturday and did something to his shoulder.

"He's not having an easy time at the moment, but when he went off Jerome Thomas went on and did well and Graham Dorrans slotted into the centre without any fuss at all.

"We've always had good midfielders since I've been at the club and this season is no different.

"We're going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment but we're still eighth in the league and, for a club of our size and with the money we spend, we've done well to reach 34 points.

"We're moving in the right direction but we know we haven't been great in the last few weeks.

"We know that ourselves and we know where we have got to improve to put it right."