Can West Brom evoke the spirit of 2002?

It was a tall order then, and despite winning two from two under Shan, remains a tall order now.

But Shan still has his sights set on the top two, despite being seven points behind with eight games remaining.

Back in 2002, the Baggies were 10 points behind rivals Wolves with eight games to go. Every Albion fan knows what happens next.

Gary Megson’s team won seven and drew one of their final eight games.

Wolves, on the other hand, won just two of their last eight, and the Baggies reached the Premier League for the first time in the most dramatic of circumstances.

Against Swansea, the Albion fans were singing: “We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.”

The gap may be smaller this time around, but there are two teams in the way, rather than one. Two teams that don’t look like letting up any time soon.

Sheffield United have kept seven clean sheets in a row. They’re unbeaten in 10.

Leeds have won three out of the last four, scoring eight, and conceding just once. That solitary goal and solitary defeat was against the Blades.

Norwich are 11 points ahead of Albion, and have won their last six. The Canaries are on song and let’s be honest, too far ahead.

The fixture list doesn’t really offer any further hope, because Albion are playing the same sides as Sheffield United and Leeds for the next few weeks.

Incredibly, in their next four games, all three clubs play Millwall, Birmingham City and Preston.

Two of them play Bristol City.

Albion are in no man’s land at the moment, seven points behind the top two and 10 points ahead of seventh.

Things have a habit of changing quickly in football, but for now the automatic places remain out of reach.

Asking one team to stutter is bad enough, but asking two to blow up when they have shown little sign of doing so is fanciful.

Albion only shaved two points off the gap before the international break because those two teams were playing each other.

But Shan is refusing to give up, and wants to start putting pressure on those above.

“I’ve always been an optimistic person,” he said, after the Brentford win. “There’s lot of games to play and lots of points to gain.

“The Championship has some up and down results. Hopefully if we can take care of what we do and that affects people above us then you never know.

“We are of the mind-set of looking to gain maximum points.”

Whether Albion can do that is another matter.

Whether it has the desired effect on the teams above is another one.

But the Friday night game against Blues does give the Baggies a chance to cut the gap to four points.