West Brom manager Carlos Corberan admitted seeing his side’s unbeaten start to the Championship season come to an end was painful.
The Baggies went down 3-2 at Sheffield Wednesday, despite coming from two goals down at half-time to draw level.
Efforts from Josh Maja and Alex Mowatt cancelled out Darnell Furlong’s own goal and a Josh Windass header, but substitute Anthony Musaba scored an 86th-minute winner to condemn Corberan’s men to defeat.
Corberan, who felt his side showed their opponents too much “respect”, said: “The level of pain that I have or my players have now is huge, because of course it’s the first defeat.
“You cannot be thinking that you are not going to have a defeat in the Championship, but at the same time we wanted to extend the momentum of the team.
“I think we played with too much respect and I need to see why we showed a lot of respect, too much respect or why we didn’t play enough well, because as a team we competed below our level. So we need to analyse why and find solutions always.
“When you don’t show your level, you give the opponent the option to beat you, because they were doing the game that we expected them to do – with pressing, with balls in behind. We didn’t manage the situation, but especially we didn’t manage well the end of the game in attack.
“We had some goal opportunities. I think we had a clear chance with (Karlan) Grant, the keeper makes a very good save.
“In the second half I saw my team, we saw ourselves and when we put our level we can control the games.
“The most important thing that I can say to my players today is to not waste minutes of football without showing your style in the pitch.”
Wednesday boss Danny Rohl praised his side’s display but admitted the victory, their first in the league since the opening day of the season, was only a “small step” forward.
Rohl said: “I think all in all our performance today was, against a really strong side, a good performance.
“We defended very well as a team, very compact. All the three goals we scored were fantastic.
“For me, just a small step today. For us it’s about consistently taking points, but more important for me is to have consistently a high performance. That means not 50 minutes or 60 minutes or 78 minutes like against Luton.
“Today again, some phases where we dropped a little bit, but then we came back.
“We need 100 per cent as a basic, then we have a chance to take something, but it’s happened the last couple of weeks.
“We missed at 2-0 some chances. We had the chance for a 3-0 or 4-0. Then the game is over. We didn’t (take them).
“And then, you know at 2-1, it’s always close and they have so much quality. It’s the reason why they are on top of the table. When you look back to the games, they need not so many chances to score.
“All in all we need a team performance every day, every weekend. It’s just about the team. Team first was the clear message today. Without the team we have not the chance to win games.”
