Hammers boss David Moyes felt his side played well as he gave a considered reaction to West Ham United’s defeat at Nottingham Forest.
The Hammers have opened the season in the worst possible way with back-to-back defeats against the defending champions and now newly-promoted Forest.
After having a goal ruled out by VAR, West Ham showed a real lack of game management as they conceded an awful goal right on the stroke of half-time.
The second half was an improvement as the Hammers hit the underside of the crossbar on two occasions and missed a couple of glaring chances.
Dean Henderson was in good form. And when West Ham were awarded a penalty by VAR for handball he easily saved Declan Rice’s passback of a penalty.
Moyes had been trying to bring on Manuel Lanzini and Gianluca Scamacca – 15 minutes too late for the liking of most frustrated West Ham fans.
Lanzini has an excellent penalty record and Scamacca would surely have been in the mix to take it too.
Rice’s woeful effort summed up West Ham’s efforts in front of goal.
But the key positive for West Ham after being starved of the ball against Man City, is that there were plenty of them.
‘We played quite well’ was Moyes’ considered reaction to the West Ham defeat at Nottingham Forest.
‘We played quite well’ David Moyes gives considered reaction to West Ham defeat at Nottingham Forest
“The decisions today didn’t quite go our way but I’m not going to tell you what I said to the referee,” Moyes said on Sky Sports.
“I can only tell you that I think we played quite well at times. We didn’t open the game up very well, for 20 minutes we didn’t start as well as we expected.
“But you need things to go (for you), we missed opportunities as well so we can’t blame the officials all the time for it.
“But we’re certainly coming away from here feeling we should have had much more.”
West Ham now face Viborg in their Europa Conference League qualifier on Thursday before taking on in-form bogey team Brighton.
On another day West Ham beat Forest comfortably.
But things must improve quickly given the compacted nature of the first half of the season.