Julen Lopetegui felt his West Ham United team were unfortunate not to take three points from Saturday’s goalless Premier League draw with Everton.
The Hammers got better as the game went on at London Stadium but were unable to find a way past an impressive Jordan Pickford, who made first-half saves to deny Jarrod Bowen and Michail Antonio, before leeping out Guido Rodríguez's powerful shot after half-time and twice denying substitute Danny Ings with superb stops in the closing stages.
When West Ham did get the ball past Pickford midway through the second half, Crysencio Summerville saw his low shot come back off the base of the far post.
After failing to muster a goal attempt in the opening 37 minutes, the Irons did at least improve, especially after Ings and Carlos Soler were introduced from the bench, with the striker causing Everton problems with his outstanding ability to create space in the penalty area, and the Spanish midfielder completing all of his passes to add thrust to the West Ham midfield.
Earlier, Everton had enjoyed the best of the first half, but failed to seriously test Łukasz Fabiański, who was helped by his outfield teammates to keep his first Premier League clean sheet since December 2023.
As it was, then, the Head Coach felt his team had deserved a victory, but accepted the point his team earned against an Everton side who have now lost one and conceded just four goals in their last seven top-flight matches.
We are not happy because we did not win the match.
Our aim was to win the match and we deserved to win the match - we had enough chances to do so. Pickford was their best player in my opinion. He did three or four saves, very good saves, and we also hit the post.
But I think that despite this, I was not happy with the first half because we can't [give a] gift to the opponent for 45 minutes. Okay, we defended well but it was not enough. That's why I was not happy with the first half.
Not because they deserved to win or they had a chance. No, because I think that we didn't show the energy and the character that we needed.
We did well in the second half we did, but we have to be more consistent.
The personality and the energy of the team has to there be from the start of the match and we didn't make the right decisions about our distances to be more aggressive in the press.
We were late [in the press] so I was not happy with this, but I think in the second half we did very well. It was not enough, but we can look at a positive thing - the clean sheet and the chances that we had.
Now we have to wish the best of the players that go with their countries in this break, crossing our fingers that they come back well and be ready for the next challenge.
It was always our intention to play as we did in the second half from the start. That's how we work.
Okay, it's true that we don't have [some of our players] right now. Four players, important players, were out - Mo [Kudus], Edson [Álvarez], [Niclas] Füllkrug and Alphonse [Areola] was not on the bench because he had problems.
But despite this, I think that the team showed in the second half that there is an opportunity for the other players too and that they took advantage of this opportunity.
It was a pity that we didn't score the goal because we would have liked a fantastic three points for us. But okay, it's one point. We are looking forward to the next challenge.
We know that with three or four points more we are looking at our position in another way. We have to achieve this consistency and to be able to improve and to look forward with a positive mind.
