Roy's Response: Real Belief We'll Avoid The Drop

Following last nights' 1-1 draw with Stoke City, Roy Hodgson was delighted with the character and quality from the Baggies and he's confident we'll avoid relegation.

Speaking to wba.co.uk Roy said he was thrilled with our overall performance and as the stats and the match bear out, we were desperately unlucky not to walk away with all 3 points.

The best reaction of the night for Roy was our response to going behind. Heads didn't dip and if anything it spurred us on to battle and try even harder.

For he's a jolly good Vela, certainly deserved the equiliser and as it lifted us out of the relegation places, Hodgson's only real disappointment was we didn't put one of our many other chances away.

'We did enough to get all three points tonight. One goal was the least we deserved. I was very satisfied with the character, commitment and resilience we showed and very pleased with the all round team performance.'

Hodgson continues to be impressed with the attitude of the players and whilst saying overall tonight he was happy to get the point, of equal if not more importance to him is in seeing the players put in a very good performance, against a difficult team.

After Wolves he called for 11 more performances like that, and against Stoke we improved.

'I'm learning every day about the players, their response has been extremely good. Today was a big step forward, we played much better than we did against Wolves and it's given me heart that if we can reproduce that ten more times - the same grit, willingness and determination - I'm hoping we'll get enough points to stay up.'

One of two elements from the game (one being after that I'll cover elsewhere) is the question of whether Vela was offside or not.

Hodgson admits that he'd have been as disappointed as Pulis was when ranting to the press about the decision, had it happened in our box, but given decisions like that are supposed to even themselves out over the season, Roy said simply.

'Tonight, if there was any good fortune going, the team's performance deserved it.'

I concur.

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