Gareth McAuley: West Brom will show 'guts, determination, and bravery'

The 38-year-old centre-back, who has been made captain by Alan Pardew in Jonny Evans's absence, was gutted the Baggies couldn't win Saturday's game against Southampton for Cyrille Regis's family on a day dedicated to the legendary striker.

After throwing away another lead, he says the team will address their mental frailties that has cost them 18 points from winning positions this season.

But he says now is not the time to panic after a promising January and with nearly a third of the season left to play.

"You can't give up," said McAuley. "It's not in my nature, it's not in the nature of those lads in the dressing room.

"We'll keep fighting, and hopefully that will bring the results and the points we need.

“We've lost 18 points from leading positions – which is to many because points are hard to come by in the Premier League at the best of times.

"That's something we need address over the next few games and find the reason why.

“Even if we had taken half of those points, it would have made a hell of a difference to our season.

“It's only a week since we won at Liverpool in the Cup, so this is not the time to panic – but it is time to roll up our sleeves and get our teeth stuck into the fight we're in."

Albion have only won three games in the league this season, and two of those came back in August in the opening two fixtures of the campaign.

But McAuley knows they need to string some victories together to drag themselves back into survival contention.

“There are 12 games left and we can't afford to throw anything away," he said. "We're four points adrift now so we're going to need back-to-back wins somewhere to claw back that deficit, so that will be our focus.

“We've done it before this season and if I had a magic wand I'd make it happen again.

"But we're going to need guts, determination, bravery – everything that makes you a professional footballer – and we need to drag that out of the group in the coming weeks."

Albion took a fourth-minute lead through Ahmed Hegazi on Saturday, but conceded two goals in three minutes just before half-time.

The game finished 3-2, which was the same scoreline as Astle Day, on another afternoon devoted to a legendary no.9 taken too soon.

“We lost our way just before half-time, where we basically conceded from two set pieces, and although we huffed and puffed in the second half, we never really recovered from it," said McAuley.

“It's an emotional time for everyone at the club. Cyrille was a huge figure around the place, he always spoke to the players when he was here and it's gutting to stand here having lost on the day we celebrated his life and everything he did for football.

“I don't know what to say except we're gutted for Cyrille's family, and everyone connected with him, because on such an occasion as this we all wanted to win it for him.”