Albion manager Tony Mowbray today insisted the Baggies are close to his pre-season points target despite dropping to the foot of the Premier League.

He said his side are ‘doing okay’ as they prepare for a crucial five-game pre-Christmas sequence that could shape their season.

Albion head for a crunch meeting with Stoke on Saturday looking for a first win in seven matches. But Mowbray insists he is not too concerned.

“When I break the season down so far there are not many occasions where, if I was predicting the season at the start, I would give is many more points than we’ve actually got,” said Mowbray.

“Over the course of the season I’m pretty sure I would predict us with enough points to make sure we stay safe.

“For me there is only Hull City at home where I would have hoped we got more from the game than we got.

“And Hull were flying at the time. They’d won several games on the bounce. In the first half in that game we were very, very good and the second half is history.

“We were disappointed to only take a point off Blackburn at home, but there are not too many occasions where you would say we were poor in that game and we didn’t do ourselves justice.

“If we’re sitting here in six weeks saying ‘we lost here and there’ I’ll be disappointed. I feel there aren’t too many games that we’ve let slip away.”