Maximilian Kilman is a straight talker, and the West Ham United defender admitted he and his teammates had not performed to the required standard in Saturday’s 3-0 home Premier League defeat by Chelsea.
The Irons were second-best to their cross-London rivals, conceding twice inside the opening 18 minutes to Nicolas Jackson before seeing their hopes of a comeback destroyed by Cole Palmer’s clinical finish less than 90 seconds after half-time.
Three straight home defeats have left the Hammers in the bottom half of the Premier League table, and Kilman says they need to stop conceding early goals if they are to start climbing the standings.
“Honestly, we weren't good enough,” he told PLP. “We've got a lot to improve on, and hopefully this will be a wake up call for us because we’re a much better team [than we’re showing] and we can do much better. So hopefully it's going to give us a big boost, and we're going to come back and make sure we’re better.
“The Premier League is the toughest league in the world, but we need to be ready for that and we need to be more proactive. For sure, that’s something we need to look into to make sure we get it right.”
West Ham have now conceded inside the opening ten minutes in all three home games, against Aston Villa, Manchester City and now Chelsea, and all three have ended in defeat.
Palmer’s strike early in the second half further dented West Ham’s hopes and Kilman says they need to stop that habit if results are to improve.
“We’ve just got to keep pushing on, as things like that happen in games, but we have to stick to the game plan and work a bit better,” he continued. “It was not good enough from anyone today, so we need to get back to training and make sure we do better next week.
“It's probably the worst time to concede and we obviously weren't good enough. To concede so early in the game and be a goal behind is always tough, so we need to make sure we're much better than this.
“We will have to have a big look at ourselves and make sure we can improve on this and make sure we come back better next week and in the games coming up.”
Having suffered three straight home defeats to start a new season for the first time in the Club’s history, the defender knows things must get better at London Stadium if the Irons are to enjoy a successful campaign.
“We want to make London Stadium a place that’s really hard to come to,” the No26 insisted.
“At the moment, it is really tough, but we're going through a big transitional period at the Club and, of course, as time goes on, I'm sure we're going to pick ourselves up and make sure we get we get going and things will improve.”
