Mowbray slams Albion defending

Albion boss Tony Mowbray slammed his side's defending despite seeing them clinch a dramatic late win.

The Baggies manager warned their poor handling of set-pieces is threatening to derail their promotion challenge and threatened to hunt new faces in the summer if there is no improvement.

"My emotion is disappointment even though we won the game," said Mowbray.

"It gets to a point where ultimately, if this group of players can't keep the ball out of the back of the net, I'll have to get some who can.

"That will be a shame for the players because they work so hard to win football matches. Ultimately we've got to stop goals going in our net.

"It's a huge disappointment the way we are defending at the moment because I know we can't be successful and achieve where we want to go if we keep defending like that.

"There is a lot of work to be done on the training ground, which we've been saying all season. Is it going to be our Achilles heel come the end of the season?

"I would suggest, if we don't find the improvement, it might well be.

"That's the frustration and disappointment for me.

"We know we can score goals. We scored four on Saturday which is fantastic and a positive.

"But there were far too many negatives for me to sit here and say 'well done, great.'

"Going forward this team will create problems for anyone and make it difficult for teams to defend.

"Our problem is when people put the ball in the box at the other end.

"That's what's hurting us at the moment. On the positive side it's great that we stuck together and kept at it.

"I'm delighted for the players that they got the points.

"I'm disappointed for some of the supporters who left the building before the goals went in. We're a team that can react pretty well to adversity.

"But they nearly made it 4-4 with a shot that looked like going in until it hit someone.

"That is just our team. I've moved people around and changed formations all season, yet the goals still do keep going in."

And Mowbray dismissed suggestions that Albion's commitment to attacking football is leaving them exposed at the back.

"It's not like teams are cutting us open," he said.

"They just lump it in our box, someone heads it and someone sticks it in our net. We need someone to get first contact and head it out of our box, which will make us a much better football team.

"Everyone is back defending and we're still conceding so it's not like we're being over-cavalier. It's not like our wide players are bombing in the box, there is no-one in midfield and teams are breaking away.

"In the last five minutes of games that has happened once or twice because of the way I tend to set my team up when we need to score a goal.

"I tend to gamble and stretch the pitch when we need to score.

"In that instance we encourage teams to attack us to break away and try and score a goal.

"So in trying to get an equaliser against Leicester we conceded two more goals.

"Generally, apart from the last few minutes of football matches, I don't think teams hurt with the ball, except from free-kicks and corners."