Head Coach Graham Potter said a defensive lapse to concede the opening goal ultimately set his West Ham United team on course for a 3-0 home Premier League defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday evening.
The Hammers had played well in the first half, creating chances and going close to opening the scoring through Lucas Paquetá, but were ultimately unable to break the deadlock in their favour before the break.
Then, within two minutes of the restart, Pape Matar Sarr was left unmarked from Xavi Simons’ corner and powered a header into the home net.
Tomáš Souček was then sent-off for a high tackle on João Palhinha and Spurs took advantage against ten men, closing the game out quickly through Lucas Bergvall’s header and Micky van de Ven’s low shot.
For West Ham, who fielded four summer signings, including 20-year-old El Hadji Malick Diouf and 21-year-old Mateus Fernandes, and had Crysencio Summerville making his first start since January, it was a challenging second half.
Potter felt his team had played well until falling behind, praised the performance of 21-year-old debutant Soungoutou Magassa off the substitutes’ bench, and said conceding the opening goal and going a man down so soon afterwards had ultimately changed the course of the game in Tottenham’s favour.
I’m disappointed of course with the end result in the second half because we made one mistake.
We had defended the set-pieces well and we made a mistake for the first goal.
Obviously the red card quickly in the space of five minutes changes the dynamic because they get another goal and then we're on the back foot.
For the first half, I thought it was a decent performance. There were lots of positives in the first half and that's the painful thing because the scoreline in the end is completely unpleasant for us.
But at the same time there were glimpses of positivity, I thought, especially in the first half. Like I said, the second half, the game goes away from us so quickly and that's the level and we have to learn from that. Like I said, the first half is what we have to focus on and remain positive.
I thought the front four were dangerous in the first half.
I thought they were supported well with Kyle Walker-Peters on the right, and supported well with Malik Diouf on the left.
I don't think Tottenham's chances against us created too much at all. They had pressure and set-pieces which is what we had to deal with and again I thought we dealt with them well until the start of the second half when we made a mistake.
And that's again the level, the detail, the margins and then we went 1-0 behind and quickly went down to ten men.
The game changed at that point and then it's an uncomfortable second half for us, there's no doubt.
We want to give our supporters more but, when the scoreline was what it was, it was a difficult evening for the boys.
At the moment we're just hurting because we've lost the game, I understand that completely.
We've played two games at home against the World Club champions and another team that's also in the Champions League, so there's quality against us. Nevertheless, we're disappointed because we wanted to do better, we wanted to have more points.
Mateus was good, coming back from international duty was not easy for him. It was Cry's first start and there's positives there that Malik was really good, that Soungou did well in difficult circumstances when he came on.
Kyle, I thought played well, so there were individuals that were there, but it's difficult to say that because the scoreline is what it is and we're all hurting from that.
We have to dust ourselves down.
It is what it is, we have to deal with it and then we have to move forward, but the boys are an honest group, they are, and we'll be ready.
