Winston Reid says West Ham United need to get over Saturday’s ‘terrible’ performance against Newcastle United as quickly as possible.
The Hammers squandered an early lead, missed a penalty and committed a series of defensive errors in falling to a 3-2 Premier League defeat by the Magpies at London Stadium.
Now, Reid and company have two days to prepare for the Boxing Day trip to another of the teams around them in the table, AFC Bournemouth, and the defender says they cannot afford to make the same mistakes again at the Vitality Stadium.
“It was terrible, from our point of view, conceding three goals, giving goals away, and they could have had another two in the first half,” said Reid, with brutal honesty.
“We didn’t do the things that we’d been doing the last couple of weeks and we didn’t take our chances as well, the chances that we had, so it wasn’t good at one end and it wasn’t fantastic at the other.
“Fortunately enough, we have another game on Tuesday, so we’ll go again then. The games are coming thick and fast now and we need to go to Bournemouth and make sure we pick up some points.”
We have to go down to Bournemouth and pick up some points
Winston Reid
West Ham looked to be on their way to a third win in four games when Marko Arnautovic capitalised on Henri Saivet’s error to put the hosts into a sixth-minute lead.
But Saivet’s free-kick four minutes later and second half goals from Mohamed Diame and Christian Atsu, both of which came after the Hammers failed to clear the ball properly, ultimately put the game beyond them.
“I thought we started well with the goal, but we let ourselves down by not capitalising on that. Newcastle were there for the taking at 1-0 down and we didn’t take advantage.
“We moved the ball too slowly and we got caught out. We put ourselves in bad positions by giving the ball to one another in the wrong positions and if you do that to a team in the Premier League, you’re going to get punished. I think that was the most disappointing thing.”
Reid warned that West Ham simply cannot afford to gift Bournemouth the same Christmas presents on Tuesday afternoon if they want to pick up a positive result on the south coast.
“It would have been a different ball game if we had levelled it at 2-2 [from the penalty or open play], one hundred per cent, but you have to take your chances and we didn’t, so we have to move forward and get some points away at Bournemouth.
“It’s tough and tight down at Bournemouth, so we have to go down there and pick up some points. It’s not going to be easy, but we have to go there and do what we had done in recent weeks, minus Saturday’s game.
“We’ll be in on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to work on our shape and tactics and we’ll be ready to go.”