Bilic - I want to apologise to the fans

Slaven Bilic could not hide his disappointment following West Ham United’s error-ridden 4-3 home Barclays Premier League defeat by AFC Bournemouth.

The Hammers gift-wrapped the Cherries’ first-ever top-flight victory, with two mistakes by Aaron Cresswell and a late blunder by Carl Jenkinson, who was sent-off, contributing to a difficult afternoon at the Boleyn Ground.

West Ham were two goals down at the break after Callum Wilson benefitted from Cresswell’s slips, before Mark Noble’s penalty and Cheikhou Kouyate’s finish levelled things after half-time. However, Marc Pugh put Bournemouth back in front before Jenkinson was robbed by and then fouled Max Gradel, allowing Wilson to complete his hat-trick from the spot.

Modibo Maiga pulled one back for the ten men, and there were a couple of moments of panic inside the Bournemouth box in added time, but Bilic admitted his team had not deserved anything after committing so many gaffes.

“It was a tough day,” the manager told West Ham TV. “It is tough to talk about it because if you talk about the first half you could talk for ages. I am so disappointed and I am sure the lads are.

“I want to apologise to the fans because it was not acceptable, not only in terms of quality because you can have a bad day, but I am talking about basics – determination, closing people down and putting them under pressure. They won the game because of that.

“You have to give Bournemouth credit of course, but any team will benefit if you give them space. In the first half, it was not just one thing. We were second best and were not near them. Because of that, they created a few dangerous moments on the flanks, but they didn’t score from that.

“If you add in a couple of mistakes that we did for their first and second goals [it does not help]. For those two goals the ball was at our feet and you wonder how it was possible that we made those mistakes. It was only because of Randolph that we went in 2-0 down.

“The second half was a different story and we got some extra gear from the penalty, then it took us up and were aggressive and a different team. We scored another one but then they scored twice and after the fourth goal, which again came from a moment that the ball was at our feet, and we had a player sent-off, it was tough.

“If you do so many mistakes, the only outcome is that you will lose the game.”

Back to back home defeats – both of which saw West Ham 2-0 down at half-time – have seen the euphoria of the opening weekend win at Arsenal disappear in the space of a fortnight, but Bilic says his players must clear their heads and ensure they start games on the front foot in the future.

“We can talk about it being early days but we have to change the mentality and only we can change it,” he continued. “It starts with me.

“Maybe after that game against Arsenal we were thinking we were going to cruise and that we only needed to turn up on the pitch and it was going to be OK, but I said it then and that is not just wrong, it is suicidal.

“I don’t buy that this is just the beginning. I will turn this around. It is not a time to panic or a time for alarms, but we can’t continue to start to play only in the second half.

“We need to start to play from the day before the game, let’s be honest.”