Steve Bruce offers verdict on key flashpoint in West Brom’s loss to Nottingham Forest | OneFootball

West Brom boss Steve Bruce has labelled the decision to send Darnell Furlong as “harsh” after his side were beaten 4-0 by Nottingham Forest on Monday night.

Forest took the lead early in the game through a penalty kick after Furlong saw a second yellow for handball, meanwhile, the Baggies felt they should have been awarded a throw in prior to the second Forest goal.

“It had the makings of a really good game in the first 15 minutes.” Bruce told WBA club media.

“They are the form team at the minute and what you need on a big night like that is for the officials to make the right decisions. I think we’ve had a harsh penalty against us. I think it’s accidental.”

“To give a penalty and then to send him off. I thought giving a penalty would have been enough.”

West Brom went on to concede two more, with Jack Colback scoring a wonder-strike before Sam Surridge added a fourth deep into injury time.

Bruce said it was always going to be a tough match for the Baggies with eleven men, but that with ten it was an “impossible” task.

However, the Baggies boss did take some positives in the defeat in terms of the resilience his side showed.

“It was always going to be difficult, even with 11 men on the pitch. We went with 10 men for about 70 minutes and that’s practically impossible when you’re losing.” Bruce continued.

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“We showed a real resilience in the second half in terms of our defending and our shape. It would have been nice not to have conceded another goal.”

“The game is over with the sending off. It was damage limitation. We defended well without ever causing them a threat.”

“As I say, they are the form team and they’ve got the place bouncing. It was always going to be difficult, but things also went against us.”

West Brom are now 12th in the Championship standings.

The Verdict

The jury is out on whether or not it was an accidental handball by Darnell Furlong and therefore Steve Bruce is wrong to label the decision to award a second yellow as “harsh”.

His arm is up in the air as the strike comes towards him and unfortunately, that often results in a penalty in the current game.

It would likely have been a more competitive game if not for that red card though, which is a shame for West Brom, whose play-off hopes are now all but over.

The Baggies are six points outside the top six with just nine points left to play for.