Boss Alan Pardew calls for West Brom supporters to bring the noise for crucial Brighton clash

The Baggies host the Seagulls desperate to snap a 20-game winless league run which has left them four points adrift of safety and one spot off the bottom of the table.

Pardew, who tasted his first victory since replacing Tony Pulis in the Hawthorns hotseat when Albion won in the FA Cup at Exeter last week, has issued an emotional rallying call as his team hunt a belated spark to their top flight campaign.

Writing in the programme for Saturday's game, Pardew said: “Our home games will be crucial in determining how the season ends for us. Today represents the first of many opportunities we will have at The Hawthorns to win the points we need.

"I call upon all of you at the stadium to generate the same kind of positivity that there was around the Arsenal game. For many people, today is a different scenario because the expectation levels against Arsenal were naturally lower.

"But right through that game, even when things weren’t going our way, you were with us, encouraging us, helping us, not putting pressure on the players.

"You play a bigger part in results than perhaps you think. And if you think I’m pleading with you – yes I am!"

Pardew is yet to taste victory in eight Premier League games since taking the reins in late November, after Pulis was sacked.

The visitors, who inflicted Albion’s first defeat of the season in the reverse fixture last September, sit 12th in the table but just seven points clear of the hosts.

Pardew added: “We need encouragement all the way, we need you to stick with the players and be right behind them from the first whistle to the last.

“In battles that I’ve had in the past at Newcastle and Crystal Palace, the home fans determine how things will go much, much more than you might imagine.

“They don’t call supporters the 12th man for nothing.”