David Moyes
After Antonio scored his goal you pulled the defenders to one side and almost looked be telling them to keep it tight, and then within seconds they equalise.
Yes, I wanted someone to double up on Zaha because he was causing us a few problems in that period in the game and we did not do it well enough at that moment because they ended up getting a cross in from that side and it ended up in a goal.
It looks as though you overextended, the team were pushing on and looked so comfortable. Then the first five minutes of that second half Palace started to catch you on the counter because you over committed is that that fair reflection?
I actually thought that we didn’t sort of press them quite as well in the second half. Crystal Palace improved in the second half but I think we were waiting on them a little bit and to try and pounce and I thought we had the opportunities to do it. When we were 1-0 up there was a cross for Tomas Soucek and it ended up a poor ball and I think we had opportunities to go 2-0 up and we did not quite get there. They grew into the game a little bit and we gave away two really soft goals from our point of view. Hopefully, it is something we can improve on.
When you compare the two performances, Leicester and today what do you think you could have done better in this match?
We didn’t pass the ball as well as we did the other night. Our rhythm and passing was not as good the other day. Several reasons for that. It was made a bit difficult. I’ve got to say the pitch is very poor, the pitch at the London Stadium is really, really poor. It’s not an excuse because we played very well on it on Monday night. Today in the dry, a bit of heat it is not good. That didn’t help. You could probably see the amount of times the ball bounced over people’s heads and it was very high off the ground. I think we never really got a good enough rhythm in our play. We did bits well in the first half but not as well and in the second half I did not think we played well, but I still thought like we looked like we would get a second goal and we did.
Did you feel you needed to change it in the second half when you sent on Manuel Lanzini and Andriy Yarmolenko? What impact do you feel they made and would you have liked to have been able to call on some different options? Does that show why you’re looking to add another attacking player before the end of the window?
Yes, I think if we had another centre-forward we might have looked to change something possibly, but we don’t and I think that Yarmolenko and Lanzini are good additions to most clubs and they came on and we gave Lanzini and Yarmo [a chance], and Yarmo had an opportunity on his left-foot. I think I have a really good team and a really good squad. Could we do with extra numbers on that? Yes, we could do but the team I have got the way they have been performing with seven out of nine points the first three games I am really happy with how they are doing. We are playing really well, we did not quite reach the standards today that we reached at Newcastle or against Leicester but I still felt that certainly our first-half performance we should have been more in front and I have to give credit to Crystal Palace because they improved in the second half and got back into the game.
How long has the pitch been a problem?
I’ve not enjoyed the quality of the pitch at all, and I’ve known about it. Even the first game I wasn’t happy about it. It’s just not good enough, it is certainly below Premier League standards at the moment.
