CRESTFALLEN skipper Kevin Davies is holding out hope of a miraculous final day escape – but admits Wanderers would only have themselves to blame if they dropped into the Championship.

A desperate situation was clarified on Sunday when the Whites allowed a two-goal lead to slip against West Brom, and QPR stole three points with a late goal against Stoke City.

It now means Owen Coyle’s side must themselves beat Stoke at the Britannia Stadium on Sunday afternoon and hope that Manchester City beat QPR.

Davies refuses to give up on that possibility – even if the task looks a daunting one.

“It would be a great escape,” he said. “Let’s hope we can do it the hard way because you know it will be difficult at Stoke and they’ll want to finish the season off in style.

“It is all hands to the pump and we know we’ll have to pull out a massive result. But we have done it before – we did it at Aston Villa – we need some heroes.”

Wanderers have kept just one clean sheet in their last 26 Premier League games and their defensive weakness was all too evident in the final stages at the Reebok.

Davies admits the club could pay a heavy price for failing to keep hold of the lead against the Baggies.

“You need to be putting your body on the line and we haven’t been doing that enough,” he said.

“We have had discussions in the dressing room and I don’t know what it was, a bit of nerves. It isn’t easy being in the bottom three.

“Maybe it’s a natural instinct to drop a little deeper and get men behind the ball rather than look to go and score a third. At 2-0 I thought we’d be comfortable but when they got themselves back into the game we looked even more nervous.”

Although Davies accepts that confidence took a hit in the dressing room after events at the Reebok, the club captain reckons the time for apportioning blame is after next weekend.

“It is hard after a game like that - you look at what you could have done individually and then as a team and obviously, we are all disappointed,” he said.

“QPR have scored late on and we conceded late on, so that is a massive swing. It could easily have been us sitting above them, but it’s not.

“That has been the story of the season. It has been a battle.

“We always knew coming into the last few games that it was going to go to the Stoke game and as it turns out we now need all three points.”