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Albion and Saido were 'poor' blasts Irvine

Boss Alan Irvine blasted Albion's lack of intensity in their defeat to Newcastle as he admitted Saido Berahino responded to his England call-up with his worst game of the season.

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The Baggies were beaten 2-0 at The Hawthorns with Berahino struggling in his first game since being included in Roy Hodgson's England squad.

And Irvine said: "We didn't play well enough. We didn't play with the right tempo and intensity for long periods of the game.

"In the periods when we were playing with that we had momentum and then we lost that by giving away a few fouls in quick succession.

"In the second half Newcastle scored when we were having a good spell. But we certainly didn't play with the intensity we need to play with throughout the game.

"We did it in little spells, yes, but not enough."

The Baggies' defeat ended a good recent spell and sent them into the international break on a low.

Berahino, who has seven Premier League goals this season, was due to link up with England for the first time today ahead of Saturday's Euro 2016 qualifier against Slovenia and a friendly against Scotland next Tuesday.

But Irvine admitted the 21-year-old failed to fire against the Magpies.

Irvine said: "He probably had his poorest game but people have poor games.

"Everybody, including myself, will probably go away asking 'Is it because of what has just happened to him during the week?'

"But you can have a poor game any time. I would like to think what happened during the week has given him a massive boost and maybe it just didn't happen for him today for whatever reason."

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