David Moyes was disappointed his side let the opportunity to move back into the Premier League's top six slip through their fingers in defeat to Fulham on Sunday.
The Irons were undone at London Stadium by an Andreas Pereira brace - with the goals scored either side of the interval - leaving the hosts at the wrong end of a 2-0 scoreline for the second game in succession.
Moyes' West Ham side had started brightly and went close through Michail Antonio, Mohammed Kudus and Lucas Paquetá in the opening exchanges, only for Pereira to net with his team's first serious attempt on goal with nine minutes on the clock.
West Ham huffed and puffed as they sought a response, but they had the game taken away from them 18 minutes from time when Pereira's second arrived on the break.
The boss handed youngster George Earthy a Premier League debut late on, only for the 19-year-old to suffer a head injury which forced him off the field on a stretcher.
The manager gave an update on Earthy's condition, as well as his thoughts on the game, to West Ham TV...
It's a horrible situation for George Earthy - he is awake and has been taken to hospital.
He had started the game really well after he came on, and was excellent with the ball.
He’s got a head injury, is awake and has been taken to hospital, so hopefully everything is OK.
We’ve picked up a couple of knocks, so we will see how he [Dinos Mavropanos] is later, as I’ve not had the chance to speak to the medical team yet.
We didn't take our chances and I'm really disappointed.
I thought we had the stronger part of the game for the best part of the first 20 to 25 minutes. I thought we missed two big chances before they scored, and we needed to be clinical in those moments so we wouldn’t have to give out too much energy in the game. As the game went on, we ran out of energy.
It was a huge moment [Antonio’s early chance], but we were susceptible to a counter-attack as we had an attacking team to try and win, and it probably went against us in a way as we got done on the counter-attack today.
I’m really disappointed with the whole thing, but I felt as if we started the game relatively well, made chances, but didn’t take the moments when we got them. It just looked like a day where we looked as if we couldn’t take our chances. We’ve probably had more possession than we’ve had in many games this season, but we couldn’t make the most of it.
It's been a demanding schedule, but we didn't put on a good enough show.
Of course they are [feeling the schedule]. I think we have seven games in April and we are getting towards the mid-end of it. Today was a really important game for us, and we knew if we won we would go sixth in the league, so I’m really disappointed we couldn’t put on a better show. I genuinely think we had the chances, but we didn’t take them.
It's an opportunity to bounce back against Bayer Leverkusen.
It’s a quick turnaround but it’s not as quick a turnaround as Thursday to Sunday. When it is Sunday to Thursday you have an extra day or two to get yourself ready, and it’s a little bit easier to prepare for that game, while the other gives you no time at all. We will get ready for the game on Thursday night now, and hopefully we can respond in the right way.
