Club News

Jones: It was one of those days

And right-back holds hands up for part he played in Fulham's winner

BILLY Jones put Albion's 2-1 defeat by Fulham down to 'one of those days' - but the right-back held his hands up for the part he played in conceding Alex Kacaniklic's winner.

The Baggies right-back teed up Romelu Lukaku for the equaliser after Dimitar Berbatov’s first-half opener and the Baggies twice hit the post with the scores level.

But confusion in the hosts' defence in the 58th minute led to them losing only their third Barclays Premier League home clash of the campaign. 

Bryan Ruiz’s lofted throughball was not dealt with by Steve Clarke’s back-four and Kacaniklic was on hand to slot the ball past Ben Foster.

“We started to get on top and it was more like we have been at home in the second half,” said Jones.

“We had them by the throat and I thought we were going to go ahead.

“But I’ve obviously made a mistake, I presumed he would miss that run and be offside.

“He took a lucky touch and put it through Ben Foster’s legs.

“I think that summed up what type of day it was going to be.

“We were making it hard for ourselves, we pressed well at times and forced a mistake from them, and then we gave them the ball straight back.

“I think frustrating is the best word to describe the game. 

“We were putting a lot of pressure on them and they were making a lot of mistakes, giving us the ball back in dangerous positions.

“And we hit the post twice, there was a great clearance and when it came back to Brunty he hit it and it was flying into the top corner until Hughes got his head on it.

“It seems to be like that on those days, we were creating chances but then they got a scrappy goal from our point of view.

“They had a bit of luck too.

“Basically it was down to us making mistakes on the ball.

“In the second half, we kept the ball better and put more continuous pressure on them.

“In the first half it was just turnover after turnover, we didn’t keep the ball well enough.

“It was one of those games, but this year we’ve been winning those kinds of games.

“We had those against Everton and Stoke last year, but we went on to win those games, so that’s the disappointing thing about yesterday.

"We’re annoyed because our home form has been so good.

"Fulham have now taken six points off us this season which isn’t very good.

"We’re disappointed with that.

"We’ll pick up those points though in the second half of the season, maybe like we did last season with an Anfield result."