Carlos Corberan: Turf Moor blow can help inspire West Brom

The Baggies led for much of last Friday’s contest at Turf Moor but succumbed to a late rally from the leaders, who are unbeaten at home.

In-form Albion battled without regular starters Brandon Thomas-Asante, Matty Phillips and Kyle Bartley, all who have been key in Corberan’s stint so far.

The clash was an opportunity for Albion, down four places to 10th after the weekend’s action, to measure themselves against the second-tier’s current best. The head coach believes defeat in such disappointing circumstances can help the squad grow.

“Of course I cannot lie to you Phillips missing was important because I cannot tell you how much he was an important player for us,” Corberan said.

“But I don’t know if the result would have changed or not (with him), I can tell you it’s a miss of one important player if you see his minutes from when I arrived here, he’s been playing, (it) is very obvious

“To not have Asante in this situation was another player who was very useful at Burnley to press or to counter-attack, but we didn’t have.

“I knew this before and tried to create the game to help us do something else, that we didn’t do.

“But it’s one game that helped us, we need to grow to be more competitive – and in football you always need to grow fast.”

Albion were up to third while leading at Burnley but play-off rivals profited over the weekend. A gap of just four points, however, separates Watford, in third, and 11th.

Corberan’s men take a break from Championship action to travel to divisional rivals Bristol City for an FA Cup fourth round tie on Saturday – just over a month after a successful league trip to Ashton Gate on Boxing Day.

“We need to go again, we need to go again, we need to go again,” the head coach continued.

“I think this group of players, they have a high level of commitment with every situation and every game.

“Unfortunately on Friday we couldn’t show everything we need to do.

“We need to learn from this game and take the experience, the next time we play this type of big games, we can show more closely the team we can be.”