Gaetan Bong believes Albion could leave the Etihad with heads held high.

The left-back said there were positive aspects of their defensive work in a 2-0 defeat at champions Manchester City.

Albion were on level terms for half an hour before Raheem Sterling rounded off a counter raid.

Sergio Aguero later added a second for a City side who had 30 attempts on goal.

Bong said: “We know we’re good on the counter-attack, and we wanted to stay in the game and slowly open up.

“We did that, and although we didn’t get the result we wanted, some teams have come and lost by more and we just have focus on the next game now.

“This is a tough place to go for all Premier League teams, even the top ones. We knew it would be hard to take points here, but we’re here to play our football and to learn from our defeats. We have to keep going.”

Bong was pleased Albion kept their discipline after the disappointment of going behind.

He added: “We started well, we were in the game and caused them a few problems, but they have quality players.

“We lost the ball on the counter-attack for the first goal and we had to stay focused to stay in the game.

“It was always going to be tough, but we kept our shape and tried to stay compact on the counter-attack. It’s never going to be easy to anything here, and we have to learn from this loss.”