Roy Hodgson admits it’d be nice to wipe the memory of Albion’s early-season 1-0 defeat to Stoke with a victory at the Britannia Stadium tomorrow (KO 3pm).
Albion lost at The Hawthorns back in late August when Ryan Shotton’s controversial winner in the final minute saw Stoke continue their dominance over the Baggies.
But the head coach insists Albion have nothing to fear against their Staffordshire rivals and believes his side are more than capable of getting a much-needed three points.
"The Stoke challenge is no longer unique because we've come to terms with it for four or five years so everyone knows what they are good at and what problems they will cause," he said.
“You just have to hope you've got the kind of players in your team who can deal with the challenge because you can't stop the throw being awarded, you can't stop the ball being whizzed in and you can't stop them sending forward all their six-footers, who are good at attacking the ball.
"You've just got to hope the players you have in your team can deal with that and not surrender to the pressure.
"We have sufficient ability to deal with it and I thought we dealt with it pretty well last year.
"In fact towards the end of the game I thought we were probably the team most likely to score a winner, so we know we can do it.
"The game here ended in a 1-0 defeat and that was probably an even more painful 1-0 defeat than the Everton one because we really weren't in any danger at all throughout the 90 minutes.
"The goal came totally out of the blue and was the result of a calamitous mix-up and a situation where the referee could have given a free-kick in our favour so all of those things went against us in that game.
"I didn't think we were outplayed by Stoke and we didn't struggle particularly to deal with them.
"But they're doing well in the league and we're not at this moment in time.
"So it's one of those games we've got to hope the team will find the necessary strength and fight back to get ourselves back to winning ways."
Can Albion get revenge tomorrow? Have your say here at Baggies Banter.
Source: FOOTYMAD
