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Gary Megson: West Brom too good to be 'faffing about' near drop zone

Gary Megson thinks this Albion squad is too good to be 'faffing about' near the bottom three.

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Gary Megson at Wembley. (AMA)

The stand-in boss guided his team to a battling 1-1 draw at Wembley today, and took particular pleasure from doing something Real Madrid had been unable to do earlier this season.

He also enjoyed hearing his name being sung by the 'brilliant' away fans, and confirmed the game had whetted his appetite for getting back into management.

That is unlikely to be at Albion, who are close to agreeing a deal with Alan Pardew to become their next head coach.

But Megson, who is happy to stay on as interim until he is no longer needed, believes he will hand over a squad capable of climbing the table.

"If the club can stick in another couple of good results you can go upwards really quickly," he said. "I don't think it's a team that should be faffing about in the relegation spots, but it is and we've got to cope with that.

"They've been very good in training," he added. "They were bright today.

"On the back of getting battered by Chelsea, what happened with Tony, and then coming away to Wembley against one of the better teams in this country, this could have been a disaster for us.

"But we set up really well, kept it going for a long time and whilst Spurs had a lot of possession and put a lot of crosses in but aside from the goal I can't remember getting away with an absolute sitter.

"Towards the end we probably had the best chance with that cross for Rondon, and Hal's strike from 18 yards, if that goes six feet either side Lloris would have had a problem."

Albion took a shock lead in the fourth minute when Jake Livermore robbed England team-mate Dele Alli in the centre-circle and slipped Rondon through for his third goal of the season.

The Baggies weathered the storm until the 74th minute, when Harry Kane equalised, but Megson was proud of the performance and said afterwards that he had tried to get the team playing further up the pitch.

"Over the course of the 90 minutes, a team of that stature is going to have a lot of possession at home," he said. "It didn't happen for them for most of the first half.

"We played with a bit more patience, we kept it and came out on the other side of the pitch when we got the opportunity. We passed the ball well.

"The goal we scored was good, we won the ball high up the pitch with Jake Livermore sliding Salomon in and his finish was a great start for us.

"I didn't think they put us under pressure after that but they started chopping and changing positions.

"Son went out on the left wing and then he showed up in central midfield.

"I think we can gain some solace from the fact the team that played possibly the best game so far this season against Real Madrid - battered them - with a formation they started with here and were having to change to try and cope with what we were doing."

Megson made two changes to the team that lost 4-0 to Chelsea, replacing Gareth McAuley at right centre-back for Allan Nyom and dropping £108,000-a-week Paris Saint-Germain loanee Grzegorz Krychowiak in favour of 19-year-old Sam Field.

Field had a superb game in the middle of the park, and Megson was quick to praise the teenager, while explaining his decision.

"With Allan Nyom going right-side centre-half, the idea was to get us a little bit higher," he said. "Doing the same things but higher up and engaging Tottenham a little bit higher.

"It worked much better first half than second. I wanted the pace of Nyom down the right and the pace of Jonny (Evans) down the left.

"In terms of Sam, I think he's going to have a great future as a footballer. He's got a lot of qualities. We've had some players not playing well enough to keep their place week in week out.

"When you get in this position, you've got two choices, keep it the same or make changes.

"Everybody tries to alter this and tweak that. The reality is we played a lot better today than we have been doing."

Megson has never suggested he is interested in the vacant job of head coach, and even though he enjoyed the game at Wembley, nothing has changed.

"It's no different now," he said. "This has whetted my appetite again. I enjoyed being on that touchline, I think I'm good at it.

"I've never said I want the job and I'm not saying it now. We haven't got a manager at the moment.

"If they turn around and somebody else comes in first thing tomorrow morning, fine.

"I'll speak to them and tell them what I know about the squad. And if the worst comes to the worst, and I don't get offered a job somewhere else I'll go travelling and play golf again.

"But the 90 minutes has made no difference for myself, it's up to the board to decide what they're doing.

"Who knows how long an interim period is? Tomorrow they'll be in for recovery, Monday they'll be in to prepare for the Newcastle game and then if I'm involved in that game on Tuesday they'll get my best.

"If I'm not, I won't be upset about it. I've been in this a long time, the club is fortunate because they needed someone to steady the ship and I've taken over 650 games so it's not as if I'm from the youth team and using this as a job advert.

But a smile did spread across his face when he was asked about the 3,500 Baggies singing 'There's only one Gary Megson' at Wembley.

"I thought they were brilliant," he beamed. "It's a great thing for any away supporter to see their club at Wembley because it's been a long time for them.

"I enjoyed that, I've got a good rapport with them and I've got all the time in the world for them. And I thought they were really good, the noise was coming from then. "The noise I heard from Tottenham most of the time was slaughtering Ben (Foster) for what they deemed was taking too long.

"I didn't think the amount of time Ben was taking was dissimilar to the amount of time Hugo (Lloris) was taking at the other end.

"We spoke about that at half-time, don't bring the crowd into it. We were doing fine with our supporters, last thing we needed was to give them a chance to get into it."