GARY McAllister has challenged Villa to win at Albion on Saturday to take a significant step towards confirming their regular status as the West Midlands’ top team.

Villa have been the region’s highest placed club for the past eight seasons since Blues eclipsed them in their first year in the Premier League in 2003.

Wolves and Albion have to go back more than three decades to 1980 and 1979 respectively for the last times they finished as the area’s leading First Division teams.

The 2010-11 campaign has been one of the closest seasons in living memory for the West Midlands quartet following a 27-year wait to have the foursome back together in the top flight.

And, ahead of a bumper derby weekend on the patch at The Hawthorns and St Andrew’s, Villa (41) are just a point above Albion (40) with Blues (38) a further two behind and Wolves (33) five more adrift.

With four rounds of games remaining, the mantle of West Midlands’ highest ranked club is still up for grabs for three of the four – with Wolves being the likely exception.

Villa have set themselves a maximum points target from Saturday’s visit to The Hawthorns and the following weekend’s home match with Wigan to put themselves in control.

Asked if the coaching staff and players realised the importance of preserving their regional status, McAllister replied: “We’re very much aware of that.

“There’s 12 points left to play for, we’re just sitting above West Brom at the moment and we want to finish on a high.

“The next two games, we’ll look at them as a little group of a three again, starting off with a point against Stoke.

“We want to emulate the previous three games where we got seven points, so that shows you the sort of targets we’re setting.