Craig Gardner urging West Brom to kick on

West Brom's derby day hero Craig Gardner hopes his vital goal to beat Aston Villa can be the launchpad for Alan Irvine's Hawthorns reign.

Gardner netted the only goal of Saturday's derby and sprinted to celebrate with Irvine, who had started the day with his position under intense pressure after five games without a win.

Former Villa midfielder Gardner said: "The celebration wasn't pre-planned at all but we came in at half-time and he gave us a gameplan.

"He works his socks off day in, day out. The whole team are behind him because he's a great person, great manager and tactician.

"I'm just pleased for him because it's a great achievement for the club to win a local derby.

"We stopped the rot against Hull and had been saying all week in training 'this is where we really needed to push on, catapult ourselves up the league and get all the fans back onside'.

"Hopefully that's happened because we need the fans and hopefully now we can really push on.

"It's really up there with the most important goals of my career. It's my first goal for West Brom, it was a local derby and will always be remembered, and we hadn't won for five games."

[comments_cta header="What do you think?" text="Did derby day hero Craig Gardner save Alan Irvine's job as boss of West Brom?" button="Log in and start commenting"]

Gardner's goal was celebrated both at the Hawthorns and at St Andrew's, where Birmingham fans sang his name during their 6-1 win against Reading.

And Gardner, a boyhood Blues fan who played for both Birmingham and Villa, believes Albion can end the season as top dogs in the West Midlands.

"I wasn't happy reading before the game I'd had a dig at Villa," he said. "What I said was West Brom are a big club because they finished higher than Villa twice in the last three years.

"It gets read how people want to read it. If they want to have a dig at me that's fine, I'm tough enough to deal with it. I will never knock Villa because I learnt my trade there."