Mark Noble cut a frustrated figure after West Ham United saw their six-game unbeaten Premier League run go up in smoke against Crystal Palace on Saturday.
After passing up a number of first half openings, the Hammers moved in front shortly after the break when Sebastien Haller finished off a flowing team move.
But rather than go on to secure a third straight home victory, the east Londoners were instead rocked by a Palace flghtback which saw Patrick van Aanholt level from the spot before Jordan Ayew won it – with the help of VAR over a tight offside call – late on.
Noble conceded the Hammers were below their best, but he still felt they did enough to merit reward from the game.
He said: “Palace are a really good side. They came here, they set up, they got men behind the ball and made it difficult for us. They’ve got some good players, but we should have definitely scored in the first half with the one or two chances that we had.
“We didn’t play as well as we can do but we scored a really good goal, a really good [team] goal, and we then got two massive decisions that went against us, which was frustrating,
“Sometimes they go for you, sometimes they go against you, but today it seemed as though everything went against us.”
“With the handball, I don’t think Dec knew anything about it. Then the offside decision was millimetres, so it’s very frustrating.”
Noble pointed to those missed opportunities in the opening period as key, but knows his team are capable of bouncing back when they return from the international break.
“In the first half, their goalkeeper made two saves that he didn’t know about from Seb and from the rebound from himself,” Noble added. “Manu had a great chance, Felipe had a great chance, but maybe we should have gone ahead with the two of them.
“Ryan cleared one off the line from them, and then we scored [a great goal], the way we moved it and passed it but after we got the breakthrough, everything went against us.”