Declan Rice admitted seeing two points slip away from the Hammers at Leicester so late in the game was tough to take on Saturday.
West Ham United battled with ten men for 53 minutes of the contest after Mark Noble was sent off and it looked as though Fabian Balbuena’s 30th minute goal was going to be enough to give them a third victory of the season.
But Wilfried Ndidi’s deflected equaliser meant they had to make do with a single point, leaving Rice and his teammates frustrated on one hand, but proud of their resilient efforts on the other.
They fought valiantly throughout the second half, repelling all Leicester could throw at them until the very end and Rice says there is plenty to be positive about.
“It was gutting to concede so late,” he admitted. “After Nobes was sent off in the first half, to hang on like we did only for them to score in the 89th minute is gutting, but we’ll take the point as this is always a hard place to come to and we were excellent with ten men.
“We dug in and we said at half time that we would have to go out and fight for everything. That’s what we did – the amount of times they were caught offside and the amount of second balls we won showed that.
“For our goal it was a good header across from me and Balbuena was unlucky with the first one, but luckily enough he knocked the second one in to put us 1-0 up.
“If we’d have come away with three points we’d have obviously been delighted, but we’ll take the point. This it a hard away game and we’ll build on it in the week with Spurs and then Burnley next Saturday.”