Hodgson – Baggies are safe

Roy Hodgson believes West Brom are now safe from relegation after his side fought back from a goal down to defeat Aston Villa 2-1 at The Hawthorns.

An own goal from Abdoulaye Meite gave Villa an early lead before Peter Odemwingie levelled for the Baggies with his 14th goal of the campaign.

Albion midfielder Paul Scharner was sent off after 62 minutes for two bookable offences, but Youssouf Mulumbu netted the winner with six minutes remaining.

West Brom, who have now taken 16 points from nine matches under Hodgson, moved above Villa into 11th place in the Premier League after a first success over their West Midlands rivals since 1985.

No doubt

When asked on Sky Sports if three points mean survival, Hodgson replied: “Oh yes! I don’t think there is any doubt about that.

“I really can’t see us going down on 43 points with a good goal difference. I would say, even if it’s not mathematical, as far as I’m concerned it’s as good as done.”
Roy Hodgson on West Brom Quotes of the week

“I don’t know what the other results were today but I really can’t see us going down on 43 points with a good goal difference. I would say, even if it’s not mathematical, as far as I’m concerned it’s as good as done.”

And Hodgson added: “I’m very, very pleased. We started the game without three of our important regular players.

“We then lost Gonzalo Jara to injury and we tried to keep in the game, which I thought we did reasonably well and then no sooner had we battled our way to an equaliser, we were down to 10 men.

“We had to show a lot of fighting spirit, a lot of determination and also quite a lot of tactical discipline to keep them out and amazingly score a second goal, which was the winner.”