Graham Potter was asked whether defeat to West Bromwich would drag his Albion side into a relegation scrap.

That question was part of the regular Thursday afternoon session via Zoom with broadcast and print media.

This time, we were looking forward to a trip to the Hawthorns and a game which sees the Baggies look to cut their gap to safety.

Potter’s reply said everything about how the Seagulls see things right now.

Albion will not be sucked on to shaky ground if they lose – because they are already there.

So does a defeat in the Black Country draw them in.

Potter said: “I wouldn’t say drawn in. We are where we are in the table, we know the situation.

“We’ve got 13 matches to play which gives us 39 points to play for.

“There’s a lot to play. We’ve been in a relegation battle for months.

“That’s the narrative of the Premier League when you’re there in the table, that’s what you can’t get away from.

“I have to answer questions about it every week, so nothing changes from our perspective.

“We know the situation we’re in.

“We know we haven’t got the points we need, we need more and that’s what we’re going to try and get.”

Albion have never won at the Hawthorns in the league but that should not be a deterrent for them.

They recently enjoyed a first success at Anfield in almost 40 years and, earlier in the season, picked up the club’s first ever wins at Aston Villa and Preston.

Their response to defeats by old foes Crystal Palace has tended to be good in the last decade.

While losing to Palace, especially in the manner we saw on Monday, hurts more than most, Albion are well placed to look past that.

They go to West Brom having lost once in their last seven Prem fixtures.

Their only defeat in their last six league games away from home was by a single goal at Manchester City.

Potter said: “I don’t think we’ve got too much to make amends for, we played very well (on Monday).

“I am 45 years old now and I can’t think of a team being more dominant and actually losing in all my career.

“That’s the beauty of football, you can be heavily punished.

“The performance levels of the players was really good.

“We play another game, it’s the next one and therefore it’s the most important.

“Whenever you play a game and lost, you want to play and get back to winning ways.

“But we’re playing a team that is fighting for the points, so it’s going to be a tough match.”

Potter said Albion had a process they needed to go through after Monday’s trauma.

But footballers tend to be a resilient bunch and the mood remains that the squad are doing a lot of things right.

He added: “I have seen a bit of a process.

“Directly after, distraught is a good word, because losing in that manner is hard to take. It’s painful, which you would expect.

“We were in the following day and, as time goes on, you start to reflect and focus on the positives.

“What did the game look like? If you play that game ten times, you win it nine times.

“It’s just the one time we did play it, we lost, we have to accept that.

“The performance level was good, there’s lots of positives for us to take, we have to look forward again, against another tough team fighting for the points.

“We have to try and carry on with the performance level and keep improving.

“The end game is to try and get the points to stay in the Premier League, it doesn’t matter where you have got those points from. We feel we’re capable of getting points against pretty much everybody in the league, that’s where our belief is.

“But every game is different, and West Brom is different to when we face Leicester, which will be different to Crystal Palace.

“Everybody is fighting, the reality is three teams will go down, and they won’t be three bad teams, because that’s the competition.”