They may not have the medals and international caps of many of their illustrious colleagues at other clubs, but the players and coaches who dragged West Bromwich Albion from the brink of oblivion will go down in Premiership history.

In finishing fourth from bottom, they became the first team, since the top flight was rebranded in 1992-3, to survive after being bottom at Christmas.

There have been times, even as late as yesterday, when that feat looked well beyond Bryan Robson's men but having scraped to safety by their fingernails they now enter the pantheon of great escape artists.

The scenes of wild celebration that greeted yesterday's final whistle could not have been any further removed from those that followed Albion's last match before Christmas Day.

They were routed 4-0 at Birmingham City and languished in the depths of despair, with just ten points to show for a game short of half a season and five adrift of their eventual finishing place.

The situation required harsh words to be spoken. They were duly delivered by a man, the perception of whom was of someone lenient of players ' shortcomings.

According to players Paul Robinson and Jonathan Greening, the truth could not be more different.

"We looked as if we were down," admitted Robinson. "The Birmingham and Liverpool games were hard. When you lose 4-0 or 5-0 it is very difficult to take.

"We had a meeting as a team and talked things through. The gaffer was very annoyed and the players were as well.

"But I think you need a time when the players start having a go at each other to liven us up a bit and we did that and started to improve after Christmas.

"To be honest we didn't really have the belief at Christmas that we could stay up. The lads were down in the dumps and the media made it worse by rubbing it in quite a lot.

"As a professional is it difficult to take when you are at the bottom and everyone is writing you off. But we dug in deep and a lot of the credit has to go to the gaffer and Nigel [Pearson] for keeping us together. We have had a lot of team spirit since Christmas."

Greening did not enjoy the rollicking as Robson spared no-one's blushes.

"The gaffer said that those performances were not acceptable and if we wanted to stay here and play for him things had to change," he said.

"They did. He put a few people out of the squad and just kept 18 or 19 players together for four or five months."

The former Middlesbrough midfielder said Robson's decision to take the Baggies to Florida midway through the season, a judgement that was questioned at the time, was another masterstroke.

"Taking us away for a training camp got us all together and our team spirit in the last three or four months has been amazing. You could see how hard we work for each other," he said.