Mike Phelan urged Hull City to show more commitment after they slipped to another damaging defeat. His side gifted West Bromwich Albion two goals in a 3-1 loss at The Hawthorns, their ninth game without a win in the Premier League.

Chris Brunt, Gareth McAuley and James Morrison capitalised on poor defending to seal Albion’s comeback win. Robert Snodgrass opened the scoring, but Hull fell apart after allowing Brunt a free header to equalise four minutes after half-time.

Hull are second-bottom in the Premier League table, three points from Crystal Palace in 17th, and Phelan, the manager, said: “We have to be more courageous and braver and sometimes take a knock.

“You can’t just be a pretty boy, you have to get your body or something on it. When it is a one-on-one situation you have to carry out that duty. For 45 minutes that was probably as good as we have played. We got the goal and we were in control, but the game doesn’t last 45 minutes and we suffered again. You can’t win games by playing nice neat football, you have to do the dirty bits at the other end. There’s only so much we can prepare and the staff do it really well and the players are aware of that. After the game it’s annoying they didn’t carry those bits of detail out.”

Hull are without an away win in the league since August, with Snodgrass’s goal their first in the top flight outside the KCom Stadium since October, and Phelan knows he needs reinforcements. “I’ll be having those conversations again, we have to look at it, we are now into the month so hopefully we’re not waiting until the 28th or 29th to do our business.”

Albion are eighth and have their second‑best points haul, 29, after 20 Premier League games. This victory followed a 2-1 win at Southampton on Saturday and Tony Pulis, the manager, rejected any talk of players being tired after two games in 48 hours. “If you tell people they’re tired, they’ll be tired – you don’t have to do too much to convince them,” he said. “Two games in three days playing professional football, for the money they get?

“Go and ask their grandfathers what it was like working seven days a week down the pit, 12-hour days, they never got tired. We have done it right, but never mentioned they’d be tired.

“Have a look around, a couple of our big [local] rivals have lost in the Championship, so don’t take anything for granted. As soon as you take your foot off the pedal, apart from the top six, the rest of us have to be on it every game to get a result.”

Jonny Evans sustained a calf problem and with Allan Nyom joining up with Cameroon for the Africa Cup of Nations, Pulis admitted the injury may change his transfer policy. “I don’t want to bring players in for the sake of it although looking at Jonny, and Nyom going away, we might have to get a couple of defenders in which we weren’t expecting to do.”