WEST Bromwich Albion manager Tony Mowbray has warned his players they must start taking their chances to stand any chance of surviving in the Premiership.

Slumped at the bottom after their defeat to Liverpool, Mowbray is under no illusions of the task ahead - especially with league leaders Chelsea next up at the Hawthorns

He insisted: “We’re not in a position where we can go out and buy £20 million and £30 million strikers.

“So we have to make the most of chances that come our way”.

Mowbray singled out striker Ishmael Miller as a player who could come good for Albion.

The Albion boss claimed: “I don’t like talking about individual players - it’s not just Ish, all strikers have to improve their game and their technique.

“The odd chance that comes their way, they have to stick it in the net.

“We’re not going to be one of those teams who create 20 opportunities a game because of the quality of opposition we’re playing against.

“But if we were to create half a dozen chances and three of them drop to Ishmael, you’d like to think he’d definitely take one of them, whether it’s off his shin or scuffed in the corner.

“I go back to Robbie Keane at the weekend. Throughout the game, I don’t ever recall our goal being peppered. It wasn’t a day where they had lots and lots of shots.

“Keane’s probably had three chances in the game and he takes two of them, while the keeper makes a save off the third one. That’s the quality we’re up against. When the chances come, it goes in the net. That’s why you pay £20 million for a player like Keane.

“With Ishmael, he might be a £20 million pound player in the making.

“Work-rate is a given thing, but Ish has to work on his technique and skills.

“He’s got to improve his technique and his ability to hold the ball up.

“And he’s got to work on his finishing skills as well.

“He’s a footballer that’s trying to make the jump into the Premier League.

“To do that, you have to keep working at your game.

“Every game is a learning curve for the players at the moment, but that doesn’t mean to say we can’t win them.”

n Former Nottingham Forest and Tottenham defender John Metgod is to become the new first-team coach at Portsmouth.

Metgod had been on the coaching staff at Feyenoord but today revealed he is set to link up with Tony Adams at Fratton Park.

The position has been vacant since Joe Jordan left Pompey for Tottenham last week

Adams had a spell on the coaching staff at Feyenoord, as well as an additional stint with FC Utrecht, before linking up with Harry Redknapp at Portsmouth in June 2006.

And Metgod, who admitted it was a difficult decision to leave De Kuip, confirmed the pair had kept in touch ever since.

He told the Feyenoord website, www.feyenoord.nl: “After all these years I leave here with pain in my heart but this is a challenge I cannot let pass by.

“Tony Adams is a key figure in British football but his thinking is influenced by Dutch football.”