David Moyes could not quite believe his West Ham United side finished on the wrong side of a 2-1 scoreline at Arsenal on Saturday night.
Eddie Nketiah's 85th minute goal meant Michail Antonio's earlier equaliser counted for little on a night where the visitors were made to rue missed opportunities.
The Hammers had double the number of attempts on goal the Gunners mustered - 14 to seven - yet ended up pointless, leaving the manager to reflect on a frustrating evening at Emirates Stadium.
"It’s tough [to take] because the players played really well tonight," Moyes said.
"They put in a great deal of effort, and not to be rewarded with some points tonight is really hard on us.
"It looked like we were going to go on and win it, but we didn’t. We switched off when we shouldn’t have. We had good opportunities to score, but we didn’t take them."
As the Hammers head into a tough-looking run of fixtures, taking on five of last season's top eight in the coming weeks, Moyes says his team should take heart not only from their performance in north London, but in the bank of performances given over the closing weeks of last season, too.
He did warn the Hammers that they need to stay switched on for the entire 90 minutes, however, if they are to turn these displays into tangible reward.
"I’d like to think we always have that effort," he added, "Some weeks you won’t play well, but since I’ve come in that’s the way we have been - we’ve been a good team.
"We want to get better and we’re not going to accept losing. We’re not going to accept turning off in the last few minutes - the boys had done an unbelievable job to get us in the position we were, so to turn off in the last three to four minutes was criminal."