Jed Wallace believes Albion had more than enough experience out on the pitch to successfully close the game out against Stoke City when they were 2-0 up.
Wallace’s goal in the 57th minute doubled the Baggies’ advantage at the bet365 Stadium after Mikey Johnston had fired them into the lead.
The Potters kept pushing though and battled back to first halve the deficit through Million Manhoef, and then equalise courtesy of substitute Andre Vidigal.
The skipper admitted the players weren’t at their best level in terms of performance, but insists their mindset doesn’t change as a result of the disappointment in their pursuit of the play-offs.
Jed said: “The feeling after that one is frustration and disappointment.
“We know how good we are defensively. I think we’ve always been a team that if we score first, we fancy ourselves to go on and win the game.
“It’s sort of the tale of the Championship. Last home game, we fought back from 2-0 down to earn a point, but today, they did.
“Everyone is desperate for points at this stage of the season, so it’s really disappointing when we get ourselves in that position to giveaway the first and then a penalty. Alex Palmer makes a great save, but he’s just unlucky it falls straight back to the lad.
“The flip side to today is that we know we’ve got two home games coming up. We said a while ago we wanted to stop losing away and start picking up points, and then also winning our home games, which we’ve done on the whole for the majority of the season.
“Watford we didn’t win, but we go into two home games now where we’re targeting six points.
“We’ve got more than enough experience on the pitch to see that one out today, the likes of myself, Barts, Darnell, Conor, Matty, Alex Palmer, Yann, Alex Mowatt - the list goes on.
“Credit to Stoke. I thought they made it difficult for us and I thought they played really well throughout the game.
“The conditions were difficult too. The wind was everywhere and they were putting a lot of balls in behind us. At times, it was a bit of a carnage Championship game.
“We showed really good bits of play from Grady and Brandon to get those goals and to get ahead, but then we’re really disappointed with how the rest of the game played out.
“This season it’s not about individuals. I’d have much rather won 2-0 and not scored myself. I think we need to keep using the squad because you saw the quality we had on the bench today. Those players can come on and change games and they have to be ready to do that.
“We have a manager who isn’t afraid to use the squad and we need to put our trust in him to do that at the right times.
“Our target doesn’t change despite today's frustration. It’s about what we do and not other teams. We know how many points we want to get to to give ourselves a chance of getting in the play-offs.
“We’ll be in tomorrow. We’ll go over the game and learn how to defend better when we’re in the lead.
“We’ll be in on Monday and we’ll be positive again. We’ll be fully focused on Wednesday.”
