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Darren Fletcher: West Brom are not safe

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Captain Darren Fletcher is refusing to count his chickens and has warned his West Brom team-mates that safety from relegation is not yet guaranteed.

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Albion reached the 40-point-mark widely accepted to secure a team's Premier League status for the next season nearly three weeks ago.

But back-to-back defeats and a resurgence from the teams in the bottom three has put the warning lights on for the 32-year-old.

Fletcher said: "Everyone talks about 40 points but teams have gone down before on 40 points and we need to make it mathematically impossible.

"I said last week if we reached the same performance level of Manchester City, we'd probably win the game against Watford. More or less did, but we didn't win so that's disappointing.

"If we perform like that week in week out we'll pick up more points."

Both Newcastle and Sunderland won at the weekend, leaving the Baggies 10 points clear of the bottom three with five games left for both Albion and the Black Cats.

Tony Pulis' side still have to play four teams in the top eight, but rather than worrying Fletcher, the skipper reckons that plays into their hands.

He said: "There's no doubt it suits us, that counter-attacking style. It sometimes suits the bigger games, not as much emphasis is on you with the ball.

"We've got two tough away games now, Arsenal and Tottenham, but we'll rise to that challenge. There's plenty of opportunities to pick ourselves up, we still need more points.

"We're going to pit ourselves against two of the best sides in the country and we've done well when we've done that this season so let's go do it again.

"We know how difficult these games will be but we go to them with no fear."