The disappointment in defeat was clear to see at the London Stadium on Saturday evening as the West Ham players slumped to the turf at the sound of the final whistle. There was a lot of talk post-match about the controversial red card handed out to Fabian Balbuena, a decision the club are now appealing. However, that could not mask the fact it was a poor performance from West Ham, as manager David Moyes admitted.
David Moyes said: “No, we did not play well. We didn’t play well, certainly in the first half, I thought we got better in the second half, but I have to admit we were against a good team. They are a good side and we didn’t really do enough today to hurt them the way we have with other teams recently. But I think we had a few situations and we were just a bit short generally today that was all.”
The West Ham players have reacted positively to the defeat and their Champions League hopes remain ahead of the final five matches of the season.
Ryan Fredricks said: “We’re up there and we want to be in the best competition next season. We know if we win every game, that we’re probably going to make the top four, so that’s what we’re going to aim to do.”
Fredericks’ fellow defender Issa Diop was another who has not given up hope of playing in the Champions League next season.
Issa Diop said: “It was an important game and of course it was not good to lose that game because they are ahead of us, but we still have five games and I hope we can win the five.”
Hammers midfielder Tomas Soucek offered a frank assessment of the performance, admitting that the opening 45 minutes was not good enough, but the Czech Republic international is still dreaming big.
Tomas Soucek said: “It’s great that we can compare ourselves to teams like Chelsea and the other teams around us. We have five games until the end and we still have a dream to be in as high a position as possible. We want to prepare for the next game and I hope we still have a big chance. It was a tough game for us. We wanted to win because we were playing at home and we have a very good record at home. We wanted to be back in the top four again, it’s our dream, so we were disappointed with the result. It was hard, and we didn’t create many chances. I had one shot in the first half which VAR could have checked for handball as it was going to the goal, but in the second half we started well and this is the way how we would like to play. We said in the changing room after the game that we should have played from the start like we did from the start of the second half. It’s a shame for us, but we were still only 1-0 down and we could have scored and drawn or even won.”
