David Moyes
There were times in the second half you looked as though you were getting on top and then you almost gave the ascendancy away again straight away?
Yes, we did. I felt that when we got back into the game, certainly on the second occasion, I felt that there would be one winner at that point and even when we got to one each I thought that we would go on to win the game or at least not lose it. So I don’t think the second half was completely true in the way that the goals went in, our defending made it that way, but I thought we played well enough in the second half at least to be back in the game or maybe win the game in the second half.
Are you concerned? It was not that long ago you were sat happily in fourth with a feel-good factor and now it has been a bit of a disappointing couple of weeks.
I think there was a good chance that could happen so we have to stay in a good strong position, stay on the shirt-tails of the teams above us when we can and keep moving on. We’ve got another game in two days’ time so we will have to try and get ready for that and hopefully perform better.
You mentioned the defending. You’ve been frustrated at not being able to create chances and score goals but especially the second half that wasn’t really a problem today. How frustrating is it now that it is the defending collectively that has let you down?
I feel overall, we shouldn’t have conceded the goals we conceded today. I thought that wasn’t good. I didn’t really like the goals we conceded at Tottenham in midweek either. But it is our job to get them better to make them better, we have got really good players there so we’ve got to try and get them playing at the top of the game.
How much does not having the Zouma-Ogbonna partnership affect the rest of the team?
Having four centre-halves at the start was my plan, I actually thought that would be really good competition. Dawson had played so well, Issa I really like and has been doing a lot of things which was good so I thought we had good centre-half options and had competitions. But we lost a couple through injury who had started the season really well but you have to remember that Dawson and Issa had played really well on the European nights as well so the centre-halves in the opening part of the season were the players mostly in form certainly up until a month or so ago.
What did you make of your creative players today, you took two of them off at half-time were you not happy with what they were doing?
No, I didn’t think so in the first half. I thought we were really poor. I thought we didn’t have enough energy but I thought that when we did get the ball and we gave it away really cheaply really quickly, it didn’t allow us to sort of build any momentum or any feeling that we were getting a bit of control of the game. So I felt as if I was going to do it, I might as well do it, to be honest, I could have changed four or five at half-time it was a difficult choice, the only reason I did not change three was my worry that because of the games in quick succession I may have had an injury or another reason to take someone off during the game or I would have changed all three at half-time.
That was a very un-West Ham like performance, why?
I said something very similar to that to the players after the game. I did not think it was anything like us so I am hoping it was an off day for us and not the West Ham that I have been with for the last two years. That’s what disappointed me more, but maybe like everybody else you can have off days. We’ve had a few of those we are not any different. I thought today’s result was a poor one but I thought we had done enough to get ourselves back in the game and maybe turned a bad day into a good day. But we just couldn’t quite see that through.
Was it a penalty?
I don’t really know, the referee gave one so we’ll have to go with that. I think the initial contact was outside the box. I believe he was falling and the next contact took place in the box. But we’ve been in a batch of VAR decisions not going for us, maybe our goal went for us today, I have not seen Mich’s goal but we have certainly had a batch if you include the decision at Arsenal for a penalty, I think the goal against Brighton should have stood and then the one at Burnley as well. So we have had a bit of disappointment with some of those decisions, so the answer to that is I don’t really know.
What are the players like in the dressing room afterward? Did you get the reaction that you were looking for after a performance like that?
The reaction has to come not in the dressing room but on the pitch and hopefully, they will put that right. Let’s be fair even today I would not question them because they have tried really hard to get back in the game. They worked so hard, tirelessly trying to get back into it but we just couldn’t make the right things happen in their third and were a bit of a pushover in our own third today so we have to try and improve on that.
