City 4 West Brom 2

Unsurprisingly, there was much tipping of West Brom for an upset ahead of yesterday's game - given our exertions in the UEFA Cup and also no doubt our propensity for allowing those sides near the bottom a great shot at taking three points.

Despite wobbling enough to allow West Brom back into the game at 2-2 (with a sniff of a win) we had enough quality and firepower to ultimately go on and take the points, and coupled with results elsewhere (notably draws for West Ham and Fulham) allow a glimmer of hope once again in the race for seventh, which will bring Europa League qualification.

There is no doubt Thursday night took a lot out of us but it was a flying start that we got off to with Robinho firing impressively home from a sumptuous through ball from Stephen Ireland to put us 1-0 ahead, and when Nedum Onouha took advantage of a bodycheck on Scott Carson from Felipe Caicedo (although it is safe to say Caicedo was surely fouled in the build up anyway), Mark Hughes may have been tempted to mimic Rafa Benitez in declaring the game over.

Perhaps a combination of both mental and physical tiredness allowed West Brom back into the game, and there must have been thoughts of games such as Liverpool where we contrived to allow sides back into games when we should have killed them off.

Credit though to the side, although Olsson's needless trip on Elano so soon after getting back on level terms was a gift, but Elano fired home (once again) and you did sense that West Brom felt their opportunity had gone. It was not until the final minute until the game was killed off though, when Ireland selflessley teed up Daniel Sturridge for a fourth and all but condemn our opponents to the drop.

A good three points then and a vital win as it keeps the season very much alive as we still have designs on that seventh position. With 53 points still the target I believe we need we have very little margin for error with some difficult games still on the fixture list to come.

We may need a huge amount of help from those sides ahead of us for us to achieve it, but if we keep winning that is all we can do. Time to sort out the away form then.