Interim boss Chris Brunt says his Albion players deserve some much-needed days off to recharge their batteries after a chaotic Christmas schedule.

Carlos Corberan’s departure for Valencia on Christmas Eve was far from ideal preparation for the trials and tribulations of the Championship at the festive time but the players have more than acquitted themselves respectably with a point at Sheffield United and Swansea, and a win against Preston with just the one loss at Derby.

They now have a little break before a tough trip to Bournemouth in the FA Cup this weekend.

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Brunt, still in temporary charge until a new manager is announced, said: “Whatever the football club decide to do, I’ll keep preparing as much as I can with Damia (Abella) and the coaching staff, Boaz (Myhill), sports science, medical.

“It’s been a real team effort and the lads deserve a couple of days off, especially at this time of year. They’ll have those, recharge themselves, and we’ve got a really tough cup tie coming up so if we’re still here, we’ll prepare as best we can. But first and foremost, I think the boys need a few days off to go and recharge, then we’ll regroup and see what happens.

“They gave everything we asked of them and have done for the last couple of weeks, so I don’t think we can be too harsh on them. The lads gave us everything after a tough period of games. It was the last one at Swansea and there’s been a lot of travelling.”

Reflecting on the Swansea game, which saw Albion concede a late leveller in Wales, Brunt said: “As a player, this was always a difficult place to come and it’s nice to come away with something, but I think we deserved all three points.

“They were putting us under pressure but the lads did really well, the substitutes had good impacts defensively and they kept the energy high.

“The run of games has been tough, the travelling takes it toll on the lads, and you could see a few of them were feeling it at the end.

“The changes were made to add a bit of energy and I think they did do that. I haven’t seen the goal back, but Joe Allen’s an experienced player and he’s nipped in ahead of somebody, but that’s football.

“If we look at things on the whole, we had lots of good scenarios where we counter-attacked well, got into good positions and maybe that final ball or final strike let us down in the end. The pitch wasn’t great and I think that played a part with a lot of bobbles in areas and, unfortunately, the bounce of the ball just didn’t go our way.

“We started slowly but we grew into the game really well. We had loads of good opportunities to score more goals and we’re disappointed we didn’t do that.

“If you’re only one goal up there’s always a chance you’ll be hit with a sucker punch and that’s what happened right at the end.”