David Moyes admitted West Ham United find themselves in a scrap at the wrong end of the Premier League table after a 2-0 defeat by Brentford.
Two goals in the first half for the Bees, netted by Ivan Toney and Josh Dasilva, were a huge blow for a Hammers side that enjoyed the better of the possession and the chances in the opening 45 minutes at London Stadium.
Captain Declan Rice hit the woodwork, while Craig Dawson, Emerson and Jarrod Bowen also went very close for the hosts, but the manager felt quality in the final third was lacking on Friday evening.
Moyes, despite the loss, was pleased with some of the calibre of play he saw from his side in between the boxes, and is already looking forward to the chance to get back to winning ways in the next Premier League outing – away to Leeds United on Wednesday…
I thought we played well.
From the first minute, I thought we did a lot of good things. We passed the ball well and made quite a few opportunities. I thought we did well but we got done by the first sucker-punch, and then another one just before half-time. It wasn’t the correct way but they scored the goals, and we didn’t.
As the manager, you have to stop the sloppiness.
In the main, we’ve been a good side defensively but it’s just in the last two games that I’ve not enjoyed watching that. I think a lot of stuff we did tonight was really good defensively, but we lost from two throw-ins which should never have happened. But it did, and we talked about their long throws.
From the first one, we didn’t win the header and we weren’t reactive to the second ball quick enough. But overall, I’ve got no qualms on the players except for a lack of quality in the final third and those lapses in concentration defensively.
We wanted to try and see if we could find another way [to win by changing to a 3-4-3 formation].
We’ve not been scoring goals, no matter what system we’re playing with at the moment. I hoped that with the extra defender then, if nothing else, we might get something out for the game.
But we’re in that moment now where we’re not doing particularly well in either box. We actually played really well between the boxes but when we got into the boxes, we didn’t do such a good job.
It just feels that there is an awful lot that just isn’t quite going at the moment, and we’ve got to turn it around.
You’ve always got to move on and the games quickly come around.
I’ve told the players that they’ve done a magnificent job to keep playing, and the energy they have showed and the drive. We talked at half-time about the importance of getting the first goal in the second half, and that was all we were going to do, and I thought after five minutes we’d got a penalty kick which was going to give us a big chance. But that didn’t materialise either.
I think we’ve got a good team but we’ve not quite had the results.
We’re really struggling to score and we’re now, at times, maybe opening up a little bit which is giving opposition chances to score. We’ve got to try and get the balance right between it.
I would say to the supporters that they’ve got a really good team and we’ve got some terrific players, and I think the future is good with what we’ve got. We’ve got a bit of a dogfight right now that we’ve got to stay away from.
