Sam Allardyce And Rafa Benitez
Sam Allardyce was left to bemoan a number of chances passed up once again as West Brom’s failure to beat rivals Wolves at The Hawthorns left them on the Premier League brink.
Sam Allardyce said: “I can’t believe we haven’t won. Can’t believe we’ve not taken the chances we created and converted a performance into a victory, not a great performance after half an hour but having changed the system we got better. We had a clear chance cleared off the line, then two magnificent chances in the second half. That should’ve been two or three up at that stage, and I’m sad for the players that they’ve not converted this into a victory. Looking at their goal, the luckiest goal of the season, you wonder why we can’t get a bit of luck like this, in these conditions and between two teams who tried to master it. We did so better because of the chances we created.”
With four matches left to play, and relegation looming as large as it has done at any other point in the campaign, the challenge now will be to ensure that the players finish this season as strongly as possible in order to avoid a hangover into next term. Allardyce, who understandably isn’t likely to give up the ghost until the cold, hard numbers no longer equate, insists that they shall continue to give their all into the final day meeting at Leeds United.
Sam Allardyce added: “We’re professionals, we owe it to everyone, the fans, ourselves, that we keep a professional attitude to try and win every game left and others above us lose their games. Hopefully, with some miracles and fairy dust, we can do that; we can only hope all the others lose above us and we win all four games. That extra two points would have given us a little bit more. We are dedicated professionals, have had a really good run of form. One thing we are missing and that is wins and converting chances. We got so near, yet so far away. We have to keep going to the end and we have to believe.”
