Villa winger James Milner has backed Albion’s survival hopes ahead of Saturday’s eagerly-anticipated derby meeting.

The Baggies will kick-off this weekend’s Villa Park clash rooted to the foot of the Premier League table, but victories in their last two home games over Manchester City and Tottenham have thrust them right back into the fight for survival.

Amazingly, Tony Mowbray’s men find themselves just seven points off 10th place and a win would at least temporarily take them out of the bottom three.

Villa, on the other hand, find themselves flying high in the upper reaches of the table and victory will send them third – for 24 hours at least.

Milner, who scored both of Villa’s goals in Sunday’s FA Cup win at Gillingham, admits it is still all to play for at both ends of the table.

He said: “The league is very tight at the moment. You might look at a team down at the bottom or one challenging for Europe. Two results either way and it could all turn around.

“Teams could be challenging for Europe or struggling against relegation – that is how tight the league is this year.

“It is great for the neutrals, and it is exciting but it is down to teams now coming out of the Christmas period where there have been a lot of games to get back into the swing of things.”

“From now it is all about training and getting all eyes on Albion. It is all about the next game that you step out to play.”