Carlos Corberán believes an “even” encounter at The Hawthorns between the Baggies and Middlesbrough on Tuesday night was won by the team which showed better quality in the final third.
Albion were beaten 1-0 by Boro after a late Hayden Hackney finish in front of the Smethwick End, a result which brought to an end their unbeaten start to season at home.
The boss watched a clash that presented decent opportunities for both sides to score goals, but admitted his players fell a little short in attacking areas in terms of quality.
Carlos said: “It’s clearly not the result that we wanted to achieve tonight.
“I knew that we were playing against a strong team. They are one team who want to attack and they force you to do lots of defending if you want to take a positive result away from them.
“In a very equal and balanced game, they showed more quality in the final third. They were using their opportunities better than how we used ours. Both teams had opportunities to create chances, and they used their opportunities better.
“They scored with one of these opportunities, and before that, Alex Palmer made two fantastic saves.
“In the big moments we had to create the chances, we didn’t find the right way to finish off the attacks.
“Like I say, it was a balanced game, but in the first half they probably had two big chances and we had one. It was similar in the second half, but they found the way to score the goal.
“The team who showed more quality in the last third of the pitch has collected all three points.
“When you build the momentum that we built at the start of the season, it creates a level of expectation and positivity, which is positive, but, at the same time, it’s not real.
“When you’ve only played against six or seven teams, you know you’ve still got lots of challenges in front of you. Our mentality as a team cannot change. We want to keep making improvements and we know we always have to give our best to win games.
“We are going to take responsibility to improve. When you win a game or lose a game, it’s not a coincidence, it’s a consequence of how you’ve prepared and how you’ve performed.
“It’s clear, we still need to do better things to win more games. That’s the target we have.
“It’s positive we’re back in action so soon, playing Millwall on Saturday. I always want to see my players giving a positive reaction after a defeat.”
