West Ham United manager David Moyes believes his team can draw plenty of positives from Sunday’s 2-1 Premier League defeat against Manchester United.
The most dramatic of afternoons at London Stadium was destined to against the Irons as Said Benrahma’s first-half deflected effort – at the end of a dominant spell of the game – was quickly cancelled out by the Red Devils’ Cristiano Ronaldo from close range.
Given a vociferous backing by a capacity crowd in East London, the Irons fought and scrapped for every ball and constantly looked a threat on the counter-attack, but went behind with a minute left when former West Ham loanee Jesse Lingard fired into the top corner from inside the area.
The Hammers were granted one last chance to claim a point from the fixture when Andriy Yarmolenko’s cross struck Luke Shaw’s arm deep into stoppage time, but Mark Noble – off the bench moments prior as a substitute – saw his penalty saved, a rarity given his outstanding record from 12 yards.
Nevertheless, Moyes told West Ham TV of his pride in his players’ – and supporters’ - efforts.
I was really pleased with so many aspects of the game.
We played really well. We played on Thursday and we came back and put on a real fitting performance in front of a fantastic crowd today.
I think it was a really good game. I thought it was a proper game today and there was plenty of drama.
We’re going to have to get used to a busy fixture schedule.
I don’t think we saw any great weaknesses in how we went about the job. That’s the way I’m planning to go ahead with it in the coming weeks. We’re going to have to play well over a lot of games.
Today was a big game against probably one of the favourites for the Premier League, and I thought for long periods we’ve done a really good job.
I thought we played well in the first half.
I thought we'd created a few chances. I thought we played some good football. It was a tough game - they had opportunities as well - but we've got a bit closer to them.
We didn't get the result, but we've got closer to them.
Kurt Zouma was very good.
We bought him in the hope that he would help us, make us stronger, and he played very well today.
It was the manager’s decision for Mark Noble to take the penalty kick.
I chose Noble to come off the bench and take the penalty kick because I know how good his penalty record is.
Mark was brave enough, he wanted it, and so from that point of view there’s no responsibility with him at all.
I think the supporters treated the team for how well they played in midweek.
I think they also saw a team who were really committed today.
It was a good game. If you’re a football supporter, it was a really good game to watch.
It was tough, they had some chances and we did as well. I’m pleased with what the players did.
Coming on, we’ve challenged one of the better teams so we need to keep looking forward. We want to keep playing at this level, against the Manchester Uniteds and Manchester Citys, because the only way we’re going to get better is seeing what we can do against them and hopefully catch them up.
We’ll go again and be ready for Manchester United away on Wednesday in the Carabao Cup.
