Roberto Di Matteo was left to bemoan a "clear penalty" that was not given as his West Brom side dropped to third in the Coca-Cola Championship courtesy of an uninspiring goalless draw at midlands rivals Coventry.

There was very little to entice a crowd of 20,871 inside the Ricoh Arena to raise themselves from their seats with a distinct lack of quality throughout the encounter.

Coventry's Dimi Konstantopoulos, brought on for Keiren Westwood after just 10 minutes, was marginally the busier of the two goalkeepers - saving well from Jerome Thomas and impressively from Chris Wood when he found himself clean through late on.

But a goal from either side never really appeared on the cards.

Yet Albion should have been handed a chance to break the deadlock from the spot in first-half injury time.

Thomas, arguably the visitors' most potent threat all afternoon, appeared to be tripped in the area by Martin Cranie but instead of pointing to the spot referee Keith Stroud reached for his yellow card and booked the Albion winger for diving.

But Di Matteo said: "It was a clear penalty.

"I've seen a replay and he touched Thomas, he just went down a bit late as he tried to stay on his feet.

"But there was a touch."

The lifeless draw means the Baggies, who started the day at the summit of the table, have now picked up five points from a possible previous 18.

The final whistle was greeted with some boos from Albion fans and an angry exchange of words between centre-back Jonas Olsson and his own supporters.

Di Matteo was unaware of the incident but was confident his charges would soon get back on track when they find their goalscoring touch.

"We just missed that cutting edge in front of goal today, with a bit of luck sometimes you get a deflection or something going for you," he added.

"We're struggling a little bit to score goals and you need to score goals to win games so we'll have to address that.

"Obviously we want to win games and at the moment we're not winning as many games as we'd like.

"It's a tough league and, as you can see, every game is hard and we're missing a few important players."

The draw certainly suited an injury-hit Coventry side who had lost their last two games in disappointing fashion and failed to keep a clean sheet in their previous 10.

And having seen Westwood forced off early on with a jarred back that he was struggling with before kick-off, Sky Blues manager Chris Coleman had nothing but praise for his battling side.

He said: "We were without Keiren, Aron Gunnarsson, Sammy Clingan, Leon Best - the spine of our team.

"So we had to play a certain type of game if we were going to get anything.

"Which is what we did and I have to give full credit to the players.

"Their attitude, appetite, hunger for it - I thought they were brilliant.

"Although it wasn't pretty, that is a positive point for us."