Liam Rosenior is not worried about Albion surviving this season.

It is NEXT season that concerns the Premier League veteran.

Rosenior, 33, has played in the top flight before for two promoted clubs.

Reading and Hull both had strong first seasons, only to succumb second time around.

Rosenior said: "I find that the second season is the hardest. I think the first season, if we can keep the momentum we've got, the freshness and enthusiasm, you have players trying to prove they can play at this level.

"Because they have that fear, I think that drives them to want to prove every week they can, which I know they can. I am really looking forward to seeing that.

"Then, in the second season, teams know more about you. I'm not saying here but players in my experience at other clubs took their eye off the ball , started worrying more about their contract situation rather than concentrating on the most important thing.

"If we can negotiate the first season - and I am looking miles ahead - then the second season for me has always been the hardest."

Rosenior has been around the block in the Premier League, with Fulham as well as Reading and Hull.

"Fulham was incredible," he said. "I made my debut at 20 against Man United, my boyhood team, got man of the match, and it just took off from there.

"I played the next four seasons regularly and enjoyed it, then they sacked Chris Coleman and brought in Lawrie Sanchez.

"He came from a period of Wimbledon and it didn't really suit my way of playing, to put it mildly.

"I thought it was time to move on. I went to Reading. They finished eighth in their first season.

"It seemed to me a club on the up, then unfortunately we got relegated on the last day and then we missed out on the last day getting promoted again, so that was quite an unlucky period.

"Then going to Hull and getting promoted under Steve Bruce and staying up the first year was amazing, an FA Cup final in the first year as well."

The Argus: Now, at the fourth time of asking, Rosenior immediately finds himself up against his idol, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola (above).

"It's mad that we are playing them in the first game," he said. "When I was five, six, seven-years-old I used to practise being him. He had a way of controlling the game from the middle of the pitch and he has taken that understanding of the game into his coaching.

"For me he coached the best ever Barcelona team. People say it's easy to coach the best players, like Messi, but the way he moulded that team together and the effort and workrate they put in is by far the best thing I've ever seen.

"He is constantly evolving and changing the way he plays. It's going to be amazing to come up against him on the first day."