Jake Livermore vows to finish West Brom job

Tomorrow’s derby will see the Championship manager of the month lock horns with the division’s player of the month after Slaven Bilic and Birmingham’s on-loan striker Scott Hogan picked up the honours for February.

The Croatian, though, will be more concerned with guiding his team back to winning ways after the home loss to Wigan was followed by a draw at Swansea. And Livermore says Albion are ready to battle in the final nine games of the campaign. “In the dressing room the boys are absolutely determined to finish the job,” the 30-year-old said.

“But no-one is going to give us anything. The last couple of results in the league have disappointed us. There are no excuses for the Wigan game but looking back now, I don’t think it was a bad point at Swansea.

“If we take one of those late chances that came our way, then you’ve almost got the perfect away performance and we’re having a completely different conversation.

“That was dropping for us at times earlier in the season and everyone went away smiling.

“Swansea made life difficult for us and it was a tough fixture.

“Now we’ve got another opponent who made life difficult for us in the game at their place. But we know what we’ve got to do and what we are going to need to get us there.”

Albion received a huge boost this week when Grady Diangana returned to full training. The winger injured his hamstring back in January and has missed the last 11 games.

And Livermore admitted his return has provided a timely boost.

“We’ve had a massive boost this week with Grady coming back into training with the group,” the captain continued.

“It’s a reminder that we’ve got the players, we’ve got the quality, we’ve definitely got the drive and the mood is great.

“In the dressing room the boys are absolutely determined to finish the job.

“We know what we will be facing and that the league position means nothing.

“Teams have come to The Hawthorns, raised their game at times, and we’ve been a bit of a free hit for them.

“We know full well we’re going to have to get out there and grab it for ourselves.

“That is what we aim to do.”