David Moyes conceded that his West Ham United were beaten by a far better Liverpool team in Wednesday's 5-1 Carabao Cup quarter-final defeat at Anfield.
The Hammers travelled to Merseyside on a run of one defeat in nine in all competitions and having defeated Arsenal at home in the previous round, but proved no match to the rampant Reds.
Playing for the seventh time in 21 days, Moyes made six changes to his team from the 3-0 home Premier League win over Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday, resting the likes of Lucas Paquetá, James Ward-Prowse, Kurt Zouma and Emerson.
Liverpool boss Jürgen Klopp also made six changes, but his replacements performed far better than the Irons', opening the scoring Dominik Szoboszlai before half-time, before Curtis Jones doubled the lead on 56 minutes. Cody Gakpo made it three before Jarrod Bowen marked his 27th birthday with a goal, only for Jones and substitute Mo Salah to give the final scoreline a comprehensive look.
Speaking to West Ham TV, Moyes admitted Liverpool had outplayed his team and that his players, some of whom have not played many minutes this season as the manager has kept faith with his regular starters, had not reached the standard required to give Klopp's side a game.
Liverpool were too good of a team for us.
It was as simple as that. We can talk all we like about it, but they were far too strong and far too quick. They were much better than we were.
We gave away a dreadful second goal which, for me, was the biggest key.
We had hung in the game in the first-half. We went in one goal down and we still had a chance, we knew that, and I actually thought we were starting to grow into the game. But then we gave away a really shabby second goal.
We’re giving the players in the team opportunities.
We’ve been questioned a little bit about rotation and rotating the players but maybe people might look at it and see the manager is making the right choice because he’s playing the players he thinks can get the results [in most games]. I don’t think it was necessarily down to any individuals.
We didn’t want to play some of the substitutes for 45 minutes or more.
We were trying to save some of the players who have been playing all the Premier League and all the European games, and we’re to find a way of giving those boys a breathing space somewhere. But we’re also trying to give the other boys who’ve not played in those games an opportunity to show what they can do.
We could use the word ‘rotate’ and we’ve not rotated that often, although we did in the really early games in Europe, and in some of them the performances weren’t that good.
I’m going to need some of these boys during the really busy period, and the Africa Cup Of Nations is coming up and some boys are going to go away for that, and these are the players that are going to be involved in the coming weeks and months.
I’m disappointed for sure.
We wanted to have a go at the Carabao Cup, we really did. But it does get worrying with the schedule we have. I’m a little worried now for the weekend because a couple of the players played longer than they should have done.
I’ve got to say a big thank you to the fans.
It was a brilliant support up at Anfield and it played its part. We stuck at it for the first half and we tried to be resilient but they just proved too good to us.
