Boss David Moyes admitted his team were way off the pace as they were heavily beaten by Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon.
The Hammers found themselves 4-0 down after just over half-an-hour at Selhurst Park, with Michael Olise, Eberechi Eze and Jean-Philippe Mateta strikes, and an own-goal from Emerson, punishing an extremely slow start.
Michail Antonio did pull one back five minutes before half-time, but a second for Mateta with 26 minutes to go restored Palace’s four-goal advantage before a freak Dean Henderson own-goal saw it finish 5-2.
Despite facing a quick turnaround following their UEFA Europa League clash against Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday, Moyes refused to make any excuse for what he described as an atrocious display.
The result served a blow to the Irons’ hopes of securing a fourth successive season of European football, as they remain eighth in the standings with four games remaining, and the manager is demanding a response against Liverpool next time out.
I’m really embarrassed and disappointed for the supporters.
We performed well on Thursday night, and we took praise for that, but today was as bad as I remember it being for a long time. We were atrocious, and we got what we deserved.
The first 30 minutes were awful. We came here to try and be hard to beat, but the goals we conceded were extremely disappointing and we really shot ourselves in the foot.
We didn’t defend, and we hardly got forward. I don’t think we crossed the halfway line for the first 15-20 minutes.
We have no excuse.
We’ve had a lot of games, and we didn’t have Jarrod [Bowen], but we knew that and we needed to come here and be better.
As a Premier League Club you have to have something about you. Every game is tough and we knew that coming here, but really it was just so, so bad.
The result is damaging [to hopes of European qualification], but we’ll keep going.
We’ve still got games to play, and we’ve still got a chance. It’s going to be tough, but we’ll just have to keep fighting and see what happens.
The big thing now is seeing a response from the players.
We’re back next week against Liverpool, and we have to be back up to speed for that one. I’ve told the players I expect a reaction, so let’s see if we get that.
The players care about the performance, the team and the Club. They know it wasn’t good enough, and I’m sure they’ll be desperate to put this right.
