NIGEL CLOUGH'S NEWCASTLE REACTION

NIGEL Clough praised his team's 'magnificent' effort after the narrow 1-0 defeat at Newcastle.

The Albion boss said: "We were beaten by a wonderful strike and that was it really. I thought we created some good situations and chances ourselves. Jackson (Irvine) had a great one that we would have fancied him to have put away but it's a magnificent effort by our lads.

"We were in the game right to the end. At 1-0 we said to stay in the game and we kept going forward and kept trying to create but we are playing against an almost Premier League side and to only come away with a 1-0 defeat, we feel a little bit hard done by, despite the penalty controversy."

The penalty awarded to Newcastle was taken and put in but then ruled out by referee Keith Stroud, possibly for encroachment.

Clough said: "I didn't think it was a penalty. It was very harsh. After that I have no idea what happened. The referee makes the decision and you move on.

"We did well after that incident to get through to half-time 0-0 with the sense of injustice the Newcastle players and crowd felt. That spurred them on for the last 15 minutes until half-time but we weathered that storm and things calmed down in the second half.

"Jon McLaughlin has not had a lot to do tonight. They just scored from a brilliant strike by Matt Richie and it was on his wrong foot as well. There's not much you can do when he hits one like that."