After his team was eliminated from the FA Cup by lower division Brstol City, David Moyes declined to offer an explanation.
The Hammers, who were missing seven first team players, lost 1-0 at Ashton Gate after giving up the game’s only goal three minutes into the match.
Their task was made even more harder when, six minutes into the second half, Said Benrahma was sent off for kicking out in response to a risky tackle by Joe Williams of City.
However, Moyes maintained that his club was solely responsible for their own failure to defeat the Championship team in both of their meetings.
In response to the loss, he commented, “We probably should have won the tie at our place a week ago, but we didn’t and we put ourselves under pressure.” “We overhit a pass for Danny Ings to score in the same play, and we should have been in to score, but we handed away a goal with a short pass, and that minute was tragic.
“We played with solid phases and terrific control, but we were unable to take use of our opportunities.
“We are a team and a club, and this is not about placing blame on anybody. Even tonight, I thought we still had enough to finish the job at the London [Olympic] Stadium, where it should have been completed.
“The games are close, but we have enough opportunities to win. We’ve had some wins and some close draws, but tonight was really close and didn’t go our way.”
And following the incident that led to Benrahma’s dismissal, Moyes maintained that his team was still in the match: “We still made some chances after the red card,” he asserted. “We never gave up on the idea of being a squad that could attack and win.
We did a decent job for the most part of it. Later on, when we were trying to find methods to get it, they had a few openings, but it was challenging with just ten men and a goal behind us.
“Even though we didn’t score, we were the better team in the first half, and I was hopeful that we would score in the second half as well. But it became almost impossible when we increased to eleven men.”
