Tony Mowbray admitted he had no excuses after Albion's disappointing defeat at Craven Cottage pointing to Fulham's superior experience in the Premier League.
The visitors were lucky to head in the break level after Danny Murphy twice hit the woodwork and Clint Dempsey also rattled the frame of Scott Carson's goal.
The introduction of Chris Brunt after half-time slightly improved Albion's fortunes with the former Sheffield Wednesday man crossing for Marc-Antonie Fortuné, who saw his effort blocked, before the hosts finally found a way past Scott Carson.
Bobby Zamora ended his goal drought just after the hour mark latching on to a Jon Pansil centre before the striker set up Andrew Johnson following another fine save from Scott Carson. Albion were given a glimmer of hope in injury-time when Roman Bednar was awarded a penalty but his miss summed up another dismal defeat on the road for the Baggies.
"I accept the defeat," the Baggies boss said.
"I think Fulham were better than us today.
"You've got to be realistic about this league.
"I watched Manchester United play Fulham in midweek and saw the gulf in quality.
"Today, you could see their experience out on the field.
"They've got a lot of Premier League experience in their side and I think it showed.
"We came to try and be resilient, to make life difficult, stay in the game as long as we could and hopefully an opportunity would come our way.
"It did and, to be fair, Marc-Antoine Fortuné probably had the best chance up until the goals when he had the ball in the six-yard box and the keeper made a save.
"If we'd gone 1-0 up it would have been more interesting of course.
"Ultimately we can't complain because they created enough chances and had enough shots on our goal for them to win the game.
"It would have been great if we'd been sat here having won 1-0, with them having hit the bar numerous times, like happened to us before.
"We are where we are and we're still working extremely hard as a group of players.
"I can't question their effort and desire to do well.
"We're playing in a league where there are a lot of players with a lot of experience - the likes of Danny Murphy, who is a quality player.
"He was at Liverpool and has probably had 400 Premier League games.
"Only five or six players in our squad have ever played in the Premier League before, so there is the gulf and what we're up against."