He said: "We're now four points behind QPR, with a game in hand, and we play them here on Wednesday. All my players need to do is repeat that level of performance, have that bit of luck, and add that quality.

"I thought we dominated large parts of the game. We hugely deserved the win, without a shadow of a doubt.

"We had a bit of fortune along the way, which is much needed in football at the business end of the season, with the two goals and the missed penalty, but it would have been a travesty if we hadn't won the game.

"I thought without the ball we were good, and with the ball, we're still tagged as a long ball team who just get the ball forward, but we showed real composure, some quality, and some of the moves leading up to chances were outstanding.

"We deserved the clean sheet. The defenders were outstanding. James Meredith set the tone with two aggressive challenges early on to win the ball, just letting people know you're there.

"We knew there was going to be a real threat against us, so to limit the chances that we had against us was a real positive."

The result was a hammer blow to West Brom's automatic promotion hopes and they now sit seven points off second-placed Sheffield United.

Jay Rodriguez – bidding to become the first West Brom player to score 20 league goals in a season since Kevin Phillips 11 years ago – missed a costly penalty, while Hegazi's late red card compounded a miserable afternoon.

Caretaker manager Jimmy Shan said: "The penalty miss is obviously a chance to gain some real momentum. I genuinely believe if we'd scored one we'd have scored two or three.

"That was a big momentum changer, because five minutes later they go up the other end and score. Again, the nature of the goal we conceded was poor.

"People are telling me the ball was out of play, but whether the ball out of play or not, the manner that they got in to create that was very disappointing."

ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'});
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By Press Association Sport Staff');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', 'd19b70ad-1f26-445f-96ce-9ed88bfffc23');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:sport,paservice:sport:club-news,paservice:sport:football,paservice:sport:match-reports');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', 'sport:football');
ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'Harris hails Millwall display in win over WBA'});