Niclas Füllkrug believes West Ham United deserved more for their performance after losing 4-1 to Manchester City on Saturday.
The Hammers became the latest Premier League team to find out just how good Pep Guardiola’s side can be at their ruthless best as Erling Haaland’s brace along with a Vladimír Coufal own goal and Phil Foden's strike saw us fall to a heavy defeat at Etihad Stadium.
German centre-forward Füllkrug converted Tomáš Souček’s pin-point cross on 71 minutes to reduce the arrears, but in the end, it was nothing more than a mere consolation.
West Ham had 17 shots in this match, to City’s ten, and it was a lesson in taking chances for Julen Lopetegui’s side as they left empty-handed on an afternoon of frustration
“I think today we deserved a better result than it was at the end,” said Füllkrug. “Last week it was a little bit different because the second half was not that good, but this week we tried to show character on the pitch and tried to do something for the result.
“In the end, they [Manchester City] have so many qualities and if you don't defend one situation as a team, it's very difficult. I think we showed some good stuff, some positive stuff and we have to go on with that. We have to try and get our confidence back, because two defeats like that hurt a lot. I am disappointed about the result, but a little bit happy about the character we tried to show.
“We showed some good stuff in the first half and I think we had a good start to the game and had some good one-on-one situations. We had our quality players always on the ball and tried to bring them in good situations, but at the end we were not clever enough to find a shot on the target or a good cross or something. We had a lot of chances [in the second-half] but it was already 4-0, and it’s very difficult then to swap the result.
“The opponents every weekend are very tough. We had Liverpool and Manchester City in the space of one week, two of the best teams in the league. Let's see how it will go next week. We will try to train, try to get better and everyone has to know what to do, and has to be 100 per cent focused on the situations.”
Füllkrug, who was rightly happy to net his second goal for the Club with a late finish, says West Ham are going through a tough period in the wake of Saturday’s 4-1 defeat - but reiterated his total confidence in his side’s capacity to quickly bounce back to form.
“It's a very tough league, but I think we have to go on, and we have to be confident because we have a very good team and we have very good players. We have to bring it on the pitch," said Füllkrug.
“Every day I learn some new stuff about the league, about the players and about England. It's very different from Germany, but I'm happy to score goals. I think it's normal as a striker that you have to score goals, but today I fought a lot for the team, I tried to run a lot for the team and it's very good if you get a goal at the end of the game because if you invest so much you want to score also.
"I think I and we can still do better.”
