Jed Wallace admitted Albion’s last-gasp defeat to Middlesbrough “hurt” and was incredibly “frustrating”, but also insisted now is not the time for negativity and says the squad need to “rally”.
The Baggies fought back from 2-0 down to draw level at 2-2 heading into the final ten minutes following efforts from Isaac Price and the club captain himself.
However, in the final stages, Boro sub Delano Burgzorg won it for the automatic-promotion chasers, inflicting defeat on Eric Ramsay in his first game in charge.
Wallace says there’s a huge amount of disappointment in the dressing room, but is adamant the group will completely get behind Ramsay’s ideas, beliefs and messages.
Jed said: “Tonight hurts. The stadium was rocking in the second half. We really came back into the second half well.
“It’s mentally frustrating. I’ve been out of the squad for a while but I’ve felt the pain of the players too many times this season in the dressing room after games, especially with the late goals.
“It’s something we need to improve on. There have been too many individual mistakes, regardless of who the manager is, from the experienced players in the group. That’s not me blaming anyone, that’s us as a collective. Too many of us haven’t been performing as well as we can. We have some really good players in there.
“As you saw in the second half, it’s not a time for negativity. The new manager has come in and has made a big impact on the group in the last few days. You could see the spirit in the stadium and the connection between the players and the fans in the second half, but we need to turn that into a 90-minute performance, but we’ve said that too many times this season.
“It's a challenge to put new ideas into practice because the manager has only been in for a couple of days. You can’t train for five hours a day, but I’m sure we’ll get plenty more information from the manager as we go on.
“The nature of the Championship is that a lot of the time, you end up playing three games in a week. There’s not as much time as he’d like in the meeting room and on the training pitches, but there’s been lots of information over the first few days.
“There are new positions and new formations to pick up, and that doesn’t just happen overnight.
“It’s frustrating. We should have probably just taken a point in hindsight. That’s easy to say now, but when you feel that energy of the stadium and you look to go and get the winner, it’s different. We probably should have shut up shop and taken a point and moved on.
“It’s a really disappointing goal from our point of view. For them, it was really good play around the box – some nice one-touch play. From our point, there’s lots we could have done better and we’ll analyse that tomorrow.
“I don’t think there’s a lack of effort. I think we’ve got the most individual errors in the league and when we lose, it feels like we lose by one goal. I think everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong this season, and that’s evident in the first goal where it hits the post and bounces back and hits Charlie Taylor and goes in.
“It’s frustrating. There’s no point crying about it now and it’s not the time for negativity. It’s my job to pick the players up and we need to rally as a group and get firmly behind the new manager and his beliefs. He’s come in with a real authority and we need to get behind him, which we will.
“It’s easy when it’s going well to puff your chest out and do the extra yards. The challenge is to do that when it’s not, and we need to do that. We need to keep going and we need to climb the table.”
