Sam Allardyce: West Brom need a 'miracle' to survive in PL
Sam Allardyce conceded Albion now need a ‘miracle’ sprinkled with ‘fairy dust’ to survive in the Premier League following their draw with rivals Wolves.
A keenly contested Black Country derby finished 1-1 last night with Fabio Silva opening the scoring for Wolves before the Baggies levelled through Mbaye Diagne.
The result leaves Allardyce’s men 10 points from safety with just four matches to play.
Speaking after the game, the Dudley-born chief couldn’t believe his side didn’t claim the derby bragging rights with Conor Townsend and Conor Gallagher both missing big chances in the second half.
But the 66-year-old admitted survival is now highly unlikely - with Allardyce having insisted in his programme notes before kick-off that his team could still pull off a create escape.
“We’re professionals - we owe it to everybody at the club, the fans, ourselves, to keep a professional attitude and to try and win every game we have got left and hope the teams above us lose their games,” he said.
“We have to hope by some magic miracle and some fairy dust we stay up.”
On the derby itself, Allardyce said: “I can’t believe we didn’t win.
“I can’t believe we’ve not taken the chances we created and converted that performance into a victory.
“We had a clear-cut chance cleared off the line. Then we had two magnificent chances in the second half - one-on-one with the keeper and missed them both.
“We then scored an excellent goal but that should have meant, by that stage, we were two or three one up.
“I’m sad for the players that they haven’t converted the game into a victory.”
Allardyce was again asked after the game about his future with his contract including a break clause that either he or Albion can activate at the end of the campaign if they do go down.
But while he revealed the club have had some tentative talks with him regarding pre-season, Allardyce insisted no decision on his future has been made.
“It needs a good open discussion on who and what we would be starting with,” Allardyce said when asked what he would need to stay.
“It’s about what difficulties will arrive from us being relegated, really that’s what financial difficulties will arise.
“That will be the first priority for the club - I accept that, those financial issues would have to be addressed.
“So what’s left after that is the discussion on what the way forward will be.
“For me, it’s about how good a chance we would have to bounce straight back.”
Allardyce continued: “I haven’t said anything about what I’m going to do next season until I have discussions with the board.
“We’ve had small bits of discussion over pre-season but other than that no real discussions.
“As our fate gets ever closer then behind closed doors we’d have to start looking at the situation in greater detail on where and how we’re going to do it.”
