Peterborough United manager piles the pressure on West Bromwich Albion ahead of Hawthorns clash

Posh travel the Hawthorns tomorrow (January 22, 3pm) stuck in the relegation zone, three points from safety and with the worst goal difference in the Championship.

But West Brom, one of the pre-season favourites for promotion following relegation from the Premier League last season, haven’t won any of their last four Championship matches, including games against struggling sides Cardiff, Barnsley and Derby County. The Baggies are seven points adrift of the automatic promotion places.

“It’s a different sort of pressure,” Ferguson admitted. “But West Brom’s ambition this season I would imagine was to win the league.

“I don’t expect them to drop out completely. There are a lot of good players there, but we gave them a very hard game at our place when we lost to the last kick of the ball and we can give them another hard game tomorrow.

“We are ready for this game. We let everyone down last weekend, but you can’t let one bad performance spook you too much. We were all hurt by the display and the result. It was like a morgue in the dressing room, but we are still right in the thick of the relegation fight. We have not been left behind. There are teams around us in even worse form than us.

“We must now fight like hell for 22 matches to get out of trouble and I’m confident we will do that. I doubt we are going to need anywhere near as many points as normal to stay up.

“We have to be better we know that. We have to be more clinical for a start. Watching the game back last weekend we had four ‘three v three’ breaks without making any of them count.”