West Brom boss Sam Allardyce says he might strip Jake Livermore of the club captaincy after his red card in defeat to Aston Villa.

No team has avoided the drop in the Premier League era with fewer than eight points from their opening 14 games. Albion are stuck on seven, three points from safety.

In his first game since replacing the sacked Slaven Bilic, Allardyce's side trailed after only five minutes to Anwar El Ghazi's strike and were reduced to 10 men eight minutes before half-time when captain Livermore was sent off on VAR review for an ugly tackle on Jack Grealish, meaning he will be banned for three matches.

Asked about the captaincy, Allardyce said: "If whoever has the armband for the next three games can handle it, they can keep it for me.

"This is the third sending-off of the season, and you cannot keep getting sent off in our position.

"I just won't accept another sending-off otherwise we'll have no chance of getting out of trouble.

"The last thing we needed is having our captain suspended for three games because he did a reckless thing on the pitch.

"You don't need to make the tackle like that. He's an experienced player but he's decided for whatever reason to lunge, and we know today with VAR you fear the worst. I had to agree with that decision."