Andy Irving’s first London Stadium start turned out to be a bitter-sweet occasion for the Scotsman.
While delighted to be given the opportunity from the off by Head Coach Nuno Espírito Santo, he was understandably left frustrated by the outcome – a 2-0 reverse against Brentford.
The Irons found life difficult against the west Londoners and ultimately did not have the answer to goals at the end of each half from Igor Thiago and Mathias Jensen.
Irving has featured regularly from the bench so far in his second campaign since arriving in east London from Austria Klagenfurt, but getting the opportunity in the starting XI represented another step forward on a personal level for the 25-year-old midfielder.
Now he wants to ensure those chances become more regular, while helping the team overcome their difficult start to the season.
“Obviously, we are disappointed with the result,” the No39 explained. “We expected the game to go in a different way than it did.
“But Brentford were strong in the areas where we probably need to improve. They put a lot of balls into our box, and I think we need to defend them better – we need to improve at that.
“I think mentally we can be better. And I think maybe our issue sometimes is that we want to play nice football and get the ball forward and link up.
“To be honest, I think at times throughout the game you saw that. We maybe lacked the final bit. But when we're not doing that and we're not able to do that, then we need to be harder to beat and harder to get on the other side of.
“[Personally] It's my first start at the London Stadium in front of the home fans, so I was absolutely delighted.
“Result aside, I enjoyed the experience. Of course, I want to build on that and keep featuring now.”
Irving’s and West Ham’s next opportunity to start to right the ship comes with a trip to Leeds United on Friday evening.
With three vital points on the line, the Scotland international says a rapid improvement is non-negotiable.
“We've got another game on Friday night, so we've got four days to prepare for that,” he continued. “We need to go out there and put in a much better performance than we did tonight. Deal with the threats of the opposition, meanwhile playing to our strengths.
“I think, as I said, when the game's maybe not going in the way that you want it, [you have to] keep pulling together, sticking together as a team, being hard to beat. And dealing with the opposition threat better than we're doing currently.”
