Chris Brunt admits West Brom need 'snookers'

The Baggies are eight points from safety with nine games remaining following Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Watford.

Brunt was reinstated into the line-up for that game, seven days after laying into his team-mates and head coach Alan Pardew in a dressing room rant.

While he confirmed there was no 'finger-pointing' this time around, he did admit that Albion's position was perilous.

“Things aren’t in our hands now,” he said. “We need snookers. But it’s up to us to go out there and keep working hard.”

“Next week we play Leicester and that is massive. We’ll be doing our best to put it right. You can’t give up until somebody tells you you’re gone.

“If we managed it, it would be the greatest of great escapes. But until it’s mathematically impossible you’ve got to keep striving.”

Alan Pardew’s job was on the line at the weekend, but the under-pressure head coach escaped the sack following an improved performance and a perceived lack of credible alternatives.

But Brunt, who held clear-the-air talks with Pardew last week, reckons the players need to take some responsibility too.

“The way football is, it falls on the manager’s head,” said the 33-year-old. “But you go home and look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’ve done enough.

“For a lot of the season the majority of us have been looking at each other and saying we haven’t played well enough. As a team you share the responsibility equally.

“There was no finger-pointing in the dressing room. We worked hard. We created chances.

“We played better than we have in the last few weeks. One mistake cost us. It is fine margins in this league.

“There are nine games still to go. There’s a lot of points to play for. It’s been a long, hard season for everybody. It hurts.

“This season we haven’t been playing well enough to get the points. It would be easy to chuck the towel in, but with nine games to go you can’t do that.

“We have to reassure everybody that we’ll definitely not be doing that. If we can win a couple you never know, other results might fall for you.

“Hopefully the fans that travelled will have seen and appreciated the effort we put in.”