Carlos Corberán believes his players did “all they could” to come from behind and earn a point against Sunderland at The Hawthorns.
The Baggies suffered a 1-0 defeat at home to the Black Cats on Saturday afternoon, a result which ended their ten-game unbeaten run in the Sky Bet Championship.
Brandon Thomas-Asante was dismissed at the end of the first 45 after picking up two quickfire yellows, with Pierre Ekwah converting a corner in front of the Brummie Road End just moments later.
The boss says his side should have dealt better with the set-piece which led to the winner, but also revealed he was pleased with the way they tried to fight their way back into the encounter.
Carlos said: “I cannot be frustrated with the performance because the team tried to give their best.
“I think you can look at the game in two different parts, but I think we deserved the defeat.
“The first one is that when we were playing 11-v-11, they didn’t create any chances, but at the same time, we should’ve controlled the ball better and not tried to force the attacks. I saw the game being under our control when it was 11-v-11.
“We had the emotion to win the game, but in football you need to control the emotions you have.
“When you are playing with one yellow card, you have to increase the levels of calm in your actions. It’s not the same when you are playing without a yellow card.
“Mistakes are part of the game. We are all human and we all make them, just as I have many times.
“We need to avoid mistakes because mistakes can have an effect on the game, which is what happened today.
“For me, one thing which was disappointing was the fact we conceded the only goal from a set-piece, which is when we had the same number of players because they didn’t attack the corner with every player.
“It was in a moment when they had less of an advantage.
“When you put these things together, you can understand why the result was 1-0 to Sunderland.
“With ten, the team was giving their best. If we didn’t concede the goal, I don’t think this team would’ve had a problem in managing this scenario and I think we would’ve picked up a point. They did all they could.
“We’ve had over 18 months without playing with ten. It’s the first game since I have been manager here since we have had a player sent off.
“It’s not a habit we have had to face this circumstance, and certainly not in the first 45 minutes.
“We should have managed the set-pieces better, especially the one they scored from, because apart from that, the chances we conceded were more to do with the risks that we took trying to get back into the game.
“The players, without doubt, will remain calm. The evaluation of the team needs to be done after match number 46. We haven’t done anything after 43 games. We still have nine points to play for and we need to give our best to collect them.
“We cannot increase our level of anxiety because that won’t help anyone.
“We need to be fully focused on controlling the things that we can control. Unfortunately today, we didn’t control them as well as we could have done and we have been beaten.”
