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West Brom boss Alan Pardew: I don't want any sympathy

Under-pressure boss Alan Pardew does not want any sympathy after a tricky week in charge of the Baggies and has admitted that a run of poor results lay at his door.

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Alan Pardew (AMA)

The Baggies boss was let down by four senior players in Barcelona last week when they allegedly stole a taxi in the early hours of the morning.

Jonny Evans, Jake Livermore, Boaz Myhill, and Gareth Barry have now been fined two weeks' wages for the incident after an internal investigation was completed this week.

But Pardew is the only new manager installed by a Premier League club this season who has not had a positive impact on results.

While he insists the 'fat lady' has not yet sung on Albion's survival prospects, he has admitted responsibility for the lack of improvement.

"I don't want sympathy from anybody," he said. "This is a difficult scenario in terms of the run this club was on before I arrived. And it hasn’t improved much since I’ve been here.

"That’s been the one failing at my door and I want to put that right. And I can only put that right now with 11 games to go.

"That’s my challenge individually. As a team and collectively these players have acted impeccably for me.

"This one crazy incident – I won’t let it take away from the professionalism and the determination we’ve shown to try and correct the results.

"Going forward we’re going to have live and die by the margins and hopefully they go our way."

Albion host Huddersfield Town this weekend knowing they must win in order to keep their slim survival hopes alive.

The bottom club are currently five points adrift at the foot of the table and seven points from safety.

"The word must-win is a bit of an irritant, but we know how important it is," said Pardew. "Nothing's over until it's over. The fat lady isn't in the room yet.

"I really hope we can turn this situation around but it is only hope at the moment.

"We've put in performances to suggest we can do it but we have to get the balance right between attack and defence.

"We're scoring one goal and conceding two, losing games, we've got to correct that.

"The guys around us have had a decent run and they've shared it out. That's a worry, we need four or five or six teams to fall away a little bit.

"The middle pack are all together and then there's us. We've not been able to cling on. Some of the performances since I've been here have been very good but we've not been to stay in touch.

"I'm convinced we've got the ability to do that, we've still got some big players missing and hopefully they'll return.

"(Nacer) Chadli, (James) Morrison, and Daniel (Sturridge). We still have options.

"The immediate concern for us is to try and put this week behind us as quickly as we can - learn lessons from it, as always – and try and get ourselves a win."

Chadli, Morrison and Sturridge are the only Albion players unavailable this weekend because Kieran Gibbs and Livermore both return to the squad.