James Morrison insists West Bromwich Albion can beat the drop this season after victory at Stoke City.

West Bromwich competed and repelled most of Stoke's aerial attacks and Morrison, who was at the heart of all the visitors' best moves, said: 'What Roy (Hodgson) has done is given us that strength to compete.

"It's our second season in the Premier League and people always say that's the difficult one.

"If we can get to that 40-point mark as early as we can we can push on from there as we did last season.

"If you look at our team we've got good players and we think we deserve to be in this league.

"But they don't just hand it to you, you've got to work, and if you see the likes of Swansea and Norwich doing that you've got keep on your game."