West Bromwich Albion centre-back Semi Ajayi has called on his teammates to improve on their performance after their lacklustre outing against Crystal Palace.
A week after grabbing their first Premier League victory against Sheffield United, Slaven Bilic's men suffered a 5-1 loss at home against the Eagles on Sunday.
Conor Gallagher brought the Baggies on level terms towards the end of the first 45 minutes after Darnell Furlong turned the ball into his own net to give Crystal Palace the lead.
Just before the break, the hosts were reduced to 10 men at the Hawthorns following the expulsion of Matheus Pereira after he kicked out at Patrick van Aanholt.
Second-half braces from Wilfried Zaha and Christian Benteke condemned West Brom to their seventh league loss of the season.
The defeat left them 19th in the table with six points after 11 matches, however, Ajayi wants the team to bounce back ahead of their next Premier League fixture against Newcastle United on Saturday.
“I think it was a very even game before the red card,” Ajayi told the club website. “If anything I thought we were edging it.
“Going down to 10 men changed things massively, but I don’t think it should’ve had as much of an effect on our performance as it did.
“We need to put this result behind us because there’s a lot more to play for this season.
“We can’t let a result like this derail our season.
“We know we weren’t good enough. We will work hard to improve and hopefully we will be a lot stronger next week.”
Ajayi has been a key player in Bilic's team this campaign, playing 900 minutes of football in 10 league matches.
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