Tony Pulis was left scratching his head after watching his West Bromwich Albion side succumb to a surprising defeat at home to Crystal Palace.

Having come into the game off the back of four straight wins, Albion never got going at home to the relegation candidates and were left with nothing as Wilfried Zaha and Andros Townsend bagged second-half goals.

Having reached the 40 point mark last week by beating AFC Bournemouth, Pulis had been keen to stress that his side wouldn't 'switch off'. 

However, that was something they seemed to do on Saturday, to their surprise of the manager.

One of those days?

"They’ve trained well all week," said Pulis. "They’ve looked bright but we were tepid right from the beginning, there was no spark and we needed one, but there wasn’t one today for us."

Saying that "it was always going to be a tight game," the Baggies boss said that "we needed someone to give us a little bit of a lift."

Asked whether or not his side have been figured out, Pulis thought that wasn't the case.

"No [we haven't been figured out. None of our players played to the level they can. We’ve had a fantastic season so far, so hopefully I'd put it down to one of those days."

After a dull game sprang to life in the second 45, West Brom struggled to contain Palace's quick wide-men on the counter. 

"I Didn’t think we did [struggle against pace] first half," said Pulis, adding "maybe [we did] after the game opened up.

"We were tepid today, very slow and didn’t play through the pitch quick enough. We played into their hands, they’ve got players that are nice and quick and they made it difficult for us."

Losing in front of home fans hurts

With an ongoing legal battle between Pulis and Palace regarding his contract from managing at the Eagles a couple of years ago providing an intriguing backdrop to the game, the manager said that it didn't change his attitude regarding the result.

"I hold my head up high with what I did at Palace, irrespective of all the stuff that’s going on.

"It hurts since it’s a home game more than anything else."