- Slaven Bilic laments 'mistakes' after West Ham United went down 4-0 to Manchester City
- Two of visitors' three first-half goals came directly from misplaced passes
- Hammers' defeat ended a run of two consecutive Premier League victories
Slaven Bilic was making no excuses after watching his West Ham United help bring about their own downfall against Manchester City.
Four weeks on from a 5-0 Emirates FA Cup drubbing by the same opposition at London Stadium, the Hammers were humbled again on home turf, going down to a 4-0 Premier League defeat.
Two of City’s three first-half goals came from misplaced passes and manager Bilic admitted his team all but gifted Pep Guardiola’s side victory.
“We started well and then they were very dangerous especially when we had the ball,” he began, before going onto lament the goals scored by Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva midway through the first period, before teenager Gabriel Jesus added a third before the break.
“We gave the ball away for their first and third goals and we made mistakes. It’s hard to go so quickly 2-0 down and then we make another mistake and then after that we weren’t aggressive enough and we didn’t close them down.
“We can say that it’s playing Man City and not every team is like Man City and that’s true but we have to get over this game and we have to prepare for the game against Southampton.
“They beat us 5-0 in the cup and then 4-0 tonight and make no mistake, we have to give them credit but it was also about us. We gave those kind of players too much space and time on the ball and space between the lines. When you give them space like that they just slaughter you.
“It was very frustrating and it’s like what happened in the cup. We again started well but when you make mistakes like we did for some of their goals and if you give the ball away in those areas then they punish you. After that, it’s very difficult to play against them.”
We weren’t aggressive enough and we didn’t close them down
Slaven Bilic
The home side did improve after the interval, with debutant Robert Snodgrass showing why he was brought in from Hull City in January, and Michail Antonio having a sweetly-struck ‘goal’ disallowed for offside.
However, when another debutant, Jose Fonte, was penalised for a trip on Raheem Sterling 23 minutes from time, Yaya Toure rubbed salt in the Hammers’ wounds by firing a penalty past Darren Randolph.
Bilic knows his players need to perform better if they are to return to winning ways at Southampton on Saturday, and has demanded an improvement at St Mary’s.
“When you are 3-0 down you are hoping to turn it around if you score a goal but to be fair it’s more you don’t want to concede more as you know the quality they have,” he admitted.
“It’s a heavy defeat for us and it’s hurting us a lot but we can’t let it affect us a lot and we need to bounce back like we did after the defeat in the FA Cup. We need to show how we can bounce back against Southampton."