West Brom bag Premiership survival

West Brom manager Bryan Robson hailed his side's Premiership survival as the greatest moment of his career at The Hawthorns yesterday.

Albion's hard-fought 2-0 win over Portsmouth, courtesy of goals from Geoff Horsfield and Kieran Richardson, proved enough to extend their top-flight status because the three results elsewhere went their way.

And Robson praised his players for becoming the first team in history to survive having been bottom of the table on Christmas Day.

Robson said: "This is the best and the reason I say that is when you are at Manchester United you are expected to win championships and trophies because you are playing with great players.

"There is no expectation whatsoever here apart from expecting us to go down so that made it very difficult for us.

"But the players have responded and kept battling no matter what the circumstances so that is great credit to them."

Robson appeared to have taken on mission impossible when he took charge of the rock-bottom Baggies in November and failed initially to win over the home fans. But his acquisitions of the likes of Kevin Campbell and Kieran Richardson proved vital in fashioning the unlikeliest of extensions to their top-flight status.

Robson added: "We have had to cope with all this stuff about you can't survive if you are bottom at Christmas, and a lot of weaker characters could easily have given that as an excuse.

"But they haven't done that. They have really fought hard for each other and the whole club have got behind the players and really believed."

Robson said he had had some success in avoiding news from elsewhere as The Hawthorns see-sawed between jubilation and spells of eerie silence.

But he admitted inquisitiveness finally got the better of him in the final 10 minutes, where the Baggies' lead looked set to count for nothing because of events at The Valley.

Robson added: "The only time it affected me was with 10 minutes to go and people started saying Palace were winning 2-1.

"You start thinking it's not going to be. But I always said we had to concentrate on our own performance and make sure we get the three points. We did that and we did it really well."

Crucial to their survival was a late equaliser for Charlton Athletic in their 2-2 draw at home to Palace, while Norwich were crushed 6-0 at Fulham and Southampton lost 2-1 at home to Manchester United.

"We always felt we had a chance because of the away form of the teams who were down there and obviously Southampton had a really tough game," Robson said.

It could not have got worse for Palace, who were heading for survival until a lapse of concentration allowed Charlton's Jon Fortune to head home a free kick in the 82nd minute.

Palace boss Iain Dowie said the game came down to "little moments of concentration. I talked about it all year, that they were one of the lessons that needed to be learned.

"But the group of players I've had have been magnificent throughout.

"They played with pride and passion today. They didn't go down with a whimper, they went down with a roar."

Yesterday's outcome did not come as a surprise to Southampton manager Harry Redknapp. "In all honesty, I thought West Brom were favourites to stay up, looking at the fixtures," he said. "I thought they would win today and that it was going to be tough for the other three of us.

"I took a big challenge on but unfortunately just couldn't pull it off."

Norwich's majority shareholder Delia Smith was determined to look on the bright side after her team failed to notch a first away win of the season that would have kept them up.

"The wonderful, positive thing we have today is a football club that has sound finances and won't have to sell players," she said. "We just hope we can hang on to them and we can give it another go next year. We'll be all right."

Champions: Chelsea

Champions League: Arsenal, Manchester United, Everton

Uefa Cup: Bolton, Liverpool, Middlesbrough

Relegated: Crystal Palace, Norwich, Southampton