Albion boss Tony Mowbray claimed a breakdown in communications was to blame for Filipe Teixeira’s angry touchline outburst after he was substituted at Fulham.

The Portuguese midfielder, who was handed a first Premier League start, showed his anger after being hauled off just moments into the second half.

But Mowbray reckons mis-read messages from Teixeira’s team-mates was the root of the problem.

The manager said: “Filipe was touch and go at half-time. He was ‘raked’ down the inside of his thigh, so we knew he had a problem.

“He went back out and within 30 seconds I was getting messages from two players on the pitch that he needed to come off. So we got Chris Brunt ready and that’s why the substitution was made so quickly after half-time, otherwise I would have made it at half-time.

“Filipe then came off and said that he wasn’t injured and that he hadn’t told anybody he was struggling, so he was disappointed. It’s a misunderstanding.

“I don’t think it changed too much. I thought Brunty did well well when he went on and asked questions of them.

“Filipe was just frustrated that he got taken off so soon after half-time. I would put it down to a misunderstanding from a message on the pitch to the coaching staff.”

Mowbray had no complaints about his team’s defeat and admitted Fulham were superior.

He said: “I accept the defeat. I think Fulham were better than us. You’ve got to be realistic about this league. You could see their experience out on the field.

“They’ve got a lot of Premier League experience in their side and I think it showed.

“We tried to be resilient, to make life difficult, stay in the game as long as we could and hopefully an opportunity would come our way.

“It did and, to be fair, Marc-Antoine Fortune probably had the best chance up until the goals.

“Ultimately we can’t complain, because they created enough chances and had enough shots on our goal for them to win the game.

“I thought Teixeira did alright for us in the first half. He was an attacking threat for us.

“But Brunt has got a great left foot, he can swing balls in and ask questions of defenders.

“You hope players that come off the bench have an impact and Chris did fine when he came on.

“But let’s be realistic, I thought Fulham’s quality controlled the game for long spells.

“In the first half of the season we generally played five in midfield and could dominate the ball against most teams we played.

“We went to Anfield and dominated the ball for long spells, but we didn’t have as much of a goal threat with one man up front.

“We’ve forsaken a bit of possession of the ball and control of the match to have more of a goal treat.

“On days like this when the opposition play really well, with a bit of composure, it becomes more difficult for sides like us.

“It would have been great if we’d been sat here having won 1-0, with them having hit the bar six times, like happened to us before.”