Steve Bruce believes two major decisions went against Albion on Saturday afternoon as they were made to settle for a 1-1 draw with Norwich City.
The Baggies took the lead early on at Carrow Road courtesy of Dara O’Shea’s back-post header, and then had loud penalty appeals waved away by the officials despite John Swift being brought down in the box by Grant Hanley.
Norwich City applied plenty of pressure after the break and drew level when Teemu Pukki’s effort from the edge of the box deflected in off Sam Byram.
Several Baggies players believed the ball had hit the arm of the Canaries defender, but once again the officials rejected Albion pleas.
Bruce said: "I think we've done well and I think we should have won the game.
"We accept that in the week we weren’t good enough and we needed a response. I think we got that today.
"Coming here was the ultimate challenge and I thought we were excellent. They scored a goal which everybody in the ground understands, I think, hits his hand and goes in. It's one of those.
"There’s eight players around the referee so he must have known something. We should be getting a penalty in the first half too and I don’t think there’s any disputing that either.
"That’s the way it is for us at the moment. We’re finding it very tough, even when we’re playing really well we haven’t been able to get that breakthrough. I believe we’re close but, of course, we’ve drawn too many games.
"Norwich will say that the ball was going out of play for the penalty I think we should have had, but Swifty has drawn the foul and their guy has barged into him. It’s a stonewall penalty and that’s a frustration for me.
"I never really want to talk about decisions because I know how hard it is, but there’s a couple that we’ve had this year that have gone against us.
"I sound like I’m always moaning and groaning but the way we played, we were terrific. Especially coming to a place like this, we should have won the match.
"We changed our shape and we were better defensively. We needed to be. I have to say, I thought the skipper [Jake Livermore] rolled back the years with his performance, he was a captain and fair play to him.
"Erik, for 34, I can’t remember the last time he played a full 90 minutes but he showed a bit of class and composure when we needed it.
"I thought Brandon Thomas-Asante deserved his opportunity. He’s got a couple of goals in a couple of games, he’s fresh and he’s put in a shift-and-a-half today. He’s certainly becoming a supporters’ hero if you like and I thought he did fantastically well."
