West Brom need wins to drag focus away from woeful week - Pardew
ByReuters
Published 22/02/2018 at 15:08 GMT
Feb 22 (Reuters) - West Bromwich Albion have to quickly string together victories to shift the attention away from their off-field problems and ensure their Premier League survival, manager Alan Pardew said ahead of Saturday's clash with Huddersfield Town.
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After the sacking of their chairman and chief-executive last week, four West Brom players were interviewed by Spanish police over the alleged theft of a taxi during a training camp in Spain.
The club's woeful week then took a turn for the worse as they crashed out of the FA Cup following a 2-1 fifth round defeat by Southampton.
Asked on Thursday if he was angry with the four players, who were involved in the incident in Barcelona -- Jonny Evans, Gareth Barry, Jake Livermore and Boaz Myhill -- Pardew said: "Of course I am. It's tempered with a results business and we need to get results.
"That incident magnified our situation and the only way we can get out of that spotlight is to win games... we've had time to face the issue and deal with it as best we can. It will never go away. It's a mistake we've had to repair ourselves from."
West Brom sit bottom of the table with 20 points and are on a three-match losing streak in the league. Pardew described Saturday's match as a "massive" game and said his club had three options going into the final stretch of the season.
"We're either going to perform the great escape, go down fighting with dignity, or go down with a whimper. I certainly hope it isn't the last one," he added.
Defender Evans will reclaim the captain's arm band after being stripped of the captaincy for last Saturday's match against Southampton.
"We're much more focused this week and our desire levels are strong," Pardew said. "The group have come together to show they mean business. We need to win, for our fans and ourselves, for our pride, to show courage and honour in our performance." (Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Davis)
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