Mowbray unworried by league position

Despite dropping down to fourth in the Championship Tony Mowbray has quelled any premature fears of panic with the Albion boss focused on picking up maximum points in the Baggies' remaining fixtures.

Albion are now four points behind Stoke and Watford and placed three points behind third-placed Bristol City after their draw with Crystal Palace last night. The Baggies do have a game in hand on their promotion rivals after postponing their clash with Cardiff last Saturday due to both clubs' participation in the FA Cup.

The Baggies progression into the quarter-finals also means the Black Country derby with Wolves will have to be rearranged with Tony Mowbray hopeful of avoiding a fixture pile-up which could hinder Albion's promotion hopes.

"There is a frustration we're not playing midweek and most of the other sides involved in the cup are," the Albion boss said.

"Cardiff have got a Welsh Cup game so we couldn't fit our game in unfortunately.

"It is impacting on our league programme now and we'd rather have points than games in hand.

"But that's where we are."

Before Saturday's FA Cup thumping of Coventry City the Baggies had been involved in a disappointing set of results taking just one point from the last two games seeing their advantage of the top of the table dwindled away. However Mowbray is now looking forward to transferring the form shown at The Ricoh Arena into the back-to-back home fixtures starting against Hull City on Saturday (KO 3pm).

"With 14 games to go it is too soon to get over concerned about the gap," Mowbray continued.

"If we were down to eight or six games to go then you start looking at where the other teams are playing and where the potential is for them to drop points.

"I've said all season I'm not overly concerned about the other clubs.

"It's about us and the fact we didn't win at Barnsley and only drew with Sheffield United that has put us in this situation.

"You've got to give credit to Stoke, Bristol City and Watford for winning football matches, while we've been dropping points.

"There's no secret to it - we've just got to win games.

"They're all tough, tough matches between now and the end of the season."