Roberto De Zerbi identified Albion’s failure to convert their chances as the main reason for Friday’s 2-0 defeat at Brentford.
Two goals by Ivan Toney condemned Albion to a second successive blank after they had scored three goals in the Italian’s first game in charge against Liverpool.
“I thought we played a good game but if you want to win you have to score,” said De Zerbi. “It is difficult to explain the result and for a coach it’s difficult for me to talk about playing a good game when we lost 2-0.
“We had a lot of potential chances and [more than] 20 shots on the goal but we didn’t score. The goalkeeper for Brentford was fantastic. Maybe that is our problem because against Tottenham we had a lot of shots but didn’t score, we couldn’t find the last pass or final cross when we needed it.”
Toney backheeled Brentford into a first-half lead before doubling their advantage with a penalty in the 67th minute, at a time when Albion were threatening to equalise.
“The second goal was important but even then I felt that if we could score one goal it would open the game up.
“We are not happy of course because we lost but on Sunday we start preparing for another game on Tuesday against Nottingham [Forest]. We will see the condition of the players and some may be tired but there aren’t any other problems.”