Tony Mowbray left fuming with West Brom issue after Bristol City heartbreak | OneFootball

The Baggies boss was less than impressed with the defending from his side as Albion’s play-off hopes took a crushing blow.

West Brom boss Tony Mowbray blasted his side’s defending deep into stoppage time with 10 men, as Albion conceded a 96th-minute winner at Ashton Gate against Bristol City on Tuesday evening to make it three defeats on the spin.

Despite falling behind in the second half to Nakhi Wells’ excellent strike, the Baggies profited off a goalkeeping error to level up the contest through Alex Mowatt, and heading into the dying embers of the game, the visitors looked like the only team who would go on to snatch three points as Daryl Dike had a golden chance denied by Max O’Leary.

However, an injury to Ousmane Diakite saw Jayson Molumby weigh in with a heavy challenge on substitute Joe Williams after the game was refused to be stopped, and the Republic of Ireland international was given his marching orders with a straight red card to leave the Baggies playing with 10 men for the final stages.

From that moment, Albion never looked comfortable and suffered last-minute heartache as Haydon Roberts’ low left-footed effort somehow squirmed under the legs of Josh Griffiths, who had a superb game in between the sticks up to that point to replace the outgoing Joe Wildsmith.

The result is so damaging to West Brom’s push for the play-offs, with the Robins now going six points clear of Albion in fifth place, while Coventry could leapfrog back into the top six with victory over Portsmouth this evening and potentially go five points clear with just five games to go of the season.

While Griffiths made a catastrophic mistake, Mowbray decided to focus on another aspect of the game that he wasn’t happy with in the defeat.

Tony Mowbray bemoans West Brom defending in Bristol City defeat

As reported by the Express & Star, Tony Mowbray was left deeply frustrated by Albion’s inability to defend in numbers when going down to 10 men, insisting his team should have had a more solid foundation.

Mowbray said: “The frustration is that it shouldn’t be easy to score against a man down, every back defending, you should always be blocking shots and getting something in the way.

“But anyway, it’s not the first goal we’ve lost late on recently, let alone earlier this season. It’s frustrating because I felt we were in the ascendancy and if anybody was going to win it in the last half hour, it was going to be us. But there we go, we found a way to lose as we did against Norwich and Sunderland in two games where we should’ve got a lot more.”

Poor West Brom mistakes are set to cost them a play-off place

In recent games against Norwich, Sunderland and Bristol City, West Brom have found a way to make errors that have led to them losing such important matches.

A misplaced pass from John Swift sent Josh Sargent on his way to netting a late winner at Carrow Road, while Joe Wildsmith and Josh Griffiths have both made goalkeeping mistakes in the last two games to cost Albion vital points.

Meanwhile, Jayson Molumby’s reckless challenge brought about a back to the wall job for the West Brom players at Ashton Gate, and that chaos could have all been avoided if the midfielder kept his head at a crucial moment.