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Tony Pulis defends poor form with strength of the Premier League

Tony Pulis has defended Albion's poor run of form in the face of growing criticism by claiming the Premier League is tougher than ever.

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Pressure is starting to mount on Tony Pulis. (AMA)

Pressure is beginning to mount on the Baggies boss from an unhappy fanbase after an insipid performance away at a Southampton team short on confidence.

Sofiane Boufal's late winner left Albion two points above the drop zone and without a win in eight games in all competitions, but Pulis says the opposition has grown stronger.

"If you take the top six out and look at the points difference between the bottom and the rest it looks as if it's going to be as tough a Premier League as we've had for years," he said.

"Going into the game we'd only lost two. A lot of those games we've drawn we'd actually been winning until the last 10 minutes."

That winless streak is odds-on to continue next weekend when Albion host unbeaten league-leaders Manchester City at The Hawthorns.

They also face Chelsea and Tottenham soon after, but Pulis isn't planning to let the daunting run heap more pressure on him.

"Sometimes you get something when you're not expecting it," he said. "I've been at this football club and gone to Manchester United and won there, so we'll take every game as it comes."

The Baggies lacked forward momentum in a dreadful first half performance Pulis blamed on the Monday night trip to Leicester 'changing the week'.

But when he was asked if the defensive midfield trio of Gareth Barry, Grzegorz Krychowiak and Jake Livermore would now be consigned to history, he said: "We have looked at things.

"I'd like to see what we'd look like with Burke and Morrison fit. Then I think we'd have a really good balance to the team."

When he was asked if that meant those two were in his ideal starting XI, he said: "We'll have to see. Burke has great pace and can run down the sides of people and has a good goalscoring record too. He brings goals to the team and is young lad too.

"We know what Mozza's like, we could have done with at times (in Southampton) just to put his foot on the ball and slow things down for us."

Those two were unavailable for Saturday's game and Pulis now has two more injury concerns to worry about after Jonny Evans and Craig Dawson were both forced off at St. Mary's.

"Jonny felt his groin but I'm more worried about Daws," said Pulis. "His knee was locked but we don't know whether it's from a kick or a twist. You know what he's like. He wouldn't normally come off."