Mark Noble admitted West Ham United had been 'naive' in surrendering the lead in Sunday's 3-2 Barclays Premier League defeat by Liverpool.

The No16 drew the Hammers level after fellow Academy graduate Glen Johnson had smashed the Reds into an early lead. Steven Gerrard then netted an own-goal to put West Ham 2-1 up shortly before half-time.

The loss of Mohamed Diame to a hamstring injury with 17 minutes remaining appeared to change the course of the match, with Joe Cole putting Liverpool back on level terms before James Collins' inadvertantly diverted Jordan Henderson's cross past a helpless Jussi Jaaskelainen.

"We were in control for long periods of the game," said the Hammer of the Year. "We were really comfortable - probably a little bit too comfortable. You know that Liverpool are going to have a lot of the ball, because that's the way Brendan [Rodgers] has sets up his team, but we were comfortable and then got a bit naive in the end, I think.

"Last week we were 2-1 up against Chelsea and we went on and got the third goal and I think we probably hunted for that a little bit too much and got caught cold."

Noble admitted the loss of Diame did play its part in Liverpool's victory.

"We obviously had our shape set up and we were comfortable. We knew what everyone else's job was and then obviously he got injured and we had to change it around a little bit and it chucked a spanner in the works.

"They managed to get a couple of goals, which was disappointing, but it shows you how far we've come that we're sitting in the dressing room absolutely gutted that we haven't beaten Liverpool. It shows you how far we've had as a team.

"We knew these games were going to be tough but we've come out of the last eight games with the number of points we wanted to come out with so we can push on now and look forward to the Christmas period and try to get more points again."

Noble netted his 14th consecutive successful penalty, expertly placing the ball past Pepe Reina into the bottom left-hand corner. Afterwards, the midfielder said he was delighted to beat the Spaniard from 12 yards for the second time, having scored a last-minute spot-kick against Liverpool at the Boleyn Ground in January 2008.

"To be honest, I took a penalty here against him in the 93rd-minute and he went the right way that time and got close to it that day as well! I saw him after the game and he said to me 'I'm gonna get one soon!'.

"Obviously if they go in the corner it's rare that the 'keeper saves them and I managed to hit the inside of the side-netting and claw us back to 1-1."

Noble was not the only Academy graduate to hit the target, however, as West Ham old boys Johnson and Cole also scored with fine efforts.

"I was here when Glen was here - I was only a kid - and we've all seen what a player Johno is. He is probably the best right-back in England for me and he's been doing that for a number of years now.

Noble said that, while West Ham had been left disappointed by their defeat, they had hit their points target so far this season and would go to West Bromwich Albion hoping to pick up a positive result next Sunday.

"To be honest, we're disappointed and it shows you how far we've come that we were 2-1 up against Liverpool and are disappointed to have lost 3-2. We were in control and are sitting in the dressing room gutted that we haven't got a result against Liverpool.

"We have been in every game at home. Against Arsenal, we were in it until about 70 minutes until they scored a couple of goals on the break. Today, we were solid and gutted that Johno has put one in the top corner from 30 yards, Joey has scored a good goal and Ginge has scored an own-goal.

"We felt we could get something out of the game and we haven't and now we have to move on."