James Shan admits West Brom U23s are stuck in a rut as winless run continues

Although academy football is about development as much as results, Shan still believes instilling a winning mentality in his players is important for their growth.

And even though the Baggies started new loanee Marc Wilson, Wales international Hal Robson-Kanu, and senior goalkeeper Boaz Myhill, alongside England U21 international Brendan Galloway, they struggled to create many chances and were undone by a late sucker punch from Newcastle striker Haris Vuckic.

"Football's a game, and there's a result at the end of it," said Shan. "You want to win games. We went unbeaten for four or five but I think we hadn't won a game, there were a lot of draws along the way.

"As a coach and as players you want to win games and at the moment we're stuck in a little bit of a rut.

"I don't think it was one of our best performances but I don't think in the context of the game it was one we deserved to lose.

"We probably haven't been as good or as threatening in the final third as I would have liked us to be. "Their keeper only had one save to make in the whole game but on the flip side of that, Bo hasn't had an awful lot to do either so the timing of the goal is difficult to take."

This poor run of form is in stark contrast to the first team, who are on course to break their record points tally in the Premier League, and now any hopes of reaching the play-offs in Division Two of Premier League 2 are distant ones.

"We've had this over the last two or three seasons where we've started really well and then for whatever reason over the back half of the season we've fallen away a little bit," said Shan.

"We've got to start putting in better performances that deserve three points. That's our main objective, to perform better."

Pick up tomorrow's Express & Star to see what Shan made of Marc Wilson's first 45 minutes in an Albion shirt and Robson-Kanu's contribution too.