Roberto De Zerbi says it does not matter whether his expectation for the transfer window was met or not.

But it felt like the Albion head coach had a few things to get off his chest after a 4-0 defeat at Luton and a quiet deadline day.

As he spoke to the media yesterday, he referred to being two men light in midfield.

What followed a few minutes later was not a rant or meltdown, which might be how it is described in some quarters.

But it was pretty heartfelt appraisal of where his injury-hit squad stand and the challenges ahead.

De Zerbi said: “The transfer market is closed. It's not my business. It's finished. It's not a problem.

“With new players or without new players, my ambition, my passion, my energy can't change.

“I want to reach the highest target we can and my focus is very strong on the target. It's not important if I had a different expectation.

“Everyone can think what they want and stop.

“We are losing too many points in the Premier League.

“With the same performances, the same games we played, we could have eight points more easily, but it's not like this, so it's tougher in the Premier League.

"We need to win two, three games in a row if we want to change speed.”

Albion’s wing options in particular will be very limited again against Crystal Palace.

De Zerbi added: “I would like to compete with all players.

“I am not used to speaking about how many players are injured, but if we speak honestly, there isn't another (Solly) March.

“Facundo Buonanotte is great, I love Facundo. But Facundo is 19 and he is from Argentina, not Southampton, or Bournemouth or Brighton.

"And he needs a lot of time. At Sheffield he played very well and three days later he was a kid on the pitch.

“Why? Because if you play with a 19-year-old you have to accept the mistakes, because to be happy when he scores into the top corner is too easy.

“And we are playing without March, without Ansu Fati, without Julio Enciso, Tariq Lamptey, Pervis Estupinan.

"It's very, very tough to compete with the big teams in this condition.

“But it's not an excuse. We lost a bad game.

“I took responsibility for the (Luton) defeat. We could have played better, for sure, but we have to analyse the squad, we have to analyse how many injured players we have, we have to analyse the age of the squad, because if we have to compete with the big teams we have to have the chance to compete.

"Our dream is to reach the semi-final, to reach the final, to win the trophy, to reach again a European position in the table - better Champions League than Europa League.

“But they are words and I don't love words.

“When I speak, I want to speak with the facts and if I am sure we can compete.

"Now, first of all, we have to recover the injured players and then we can speak for one hour, two hours on the new target.

“Now we are suffering a lot, because we are 13, 14, 15 players maximum.

“When we are 15, we are more than happy. And playing three times per week is tough, because we are not used to playing three games.

"You have to reach the games with 100% energy. If you have 50% energy in the Premier League you will lose every game.

“If you have 20% of your energy, you lose 4-0 at Luton.

“Because Luton played a fantastic game, the best game they played I don't know in their life but anyway this season. And we played the worst in our life and not this season."