David Moyes cut a frustrated figure following West Ham United’s 2-2 Premier League draw at Sheffield United on Sunday.
The Irons appeared to have overcome the absence of six senior players, testing conditions caused by Storm Isha and the threat posed by the Blades at Bramall Lane, only for a controversial late Oli McBurnie penalty deny the Londoners victory.
Despite being depleted and not at their best, West Ham twice went in front either side of half-time, first through Maxwel Cornet’s first goal for the Club and later through James Ward-Prowse’s penalty – both of which were created by Man of the Match Danny Ings.
But an already eventful game took on a whole new level of drama in added time, leaving Moyes feeling a mixture of disappointment, confusion and frustration, both in the officiating and in the performance and game management demonstrated by his own team.
First, Sheffield United substitute Rhian Brewster was sent-off on review after referee Michael Salisbury was called to the pitchside screen by VAR Robert Jones.
Next, after Ings had twice been denied a third goal for West Ham, Vladimír Coufal was shown the red card for a second bookable offence, having been shown his first yellow for protesting Brewster’s challenge on Emerson.
The Hammers dealt with the initial delivery, only for Alphonse Areola to be penalised for a challenge on McBurnie as the ball was delivered back into the penalty area. The Frenchman was injured and replaced by Łukasz Fabiański who, in the 12th minute of added time, was beaten by McBurnie’s penalty.
Finally, 13 minutes past the 90, Ben Johnson’s cross towards Bowen saw the forward appear to be fouled by Anel Ahmedhodžić, only for the referee to whistle the West Ham man for handball as he fell to the ground under the Blades captain’s challenge.
With so much to digest and reflect upon, it came as no surprise that Moyes felt so strongly about what he had witnessed…
It was a difficult game for us.
We didn’t play well. Our performance wasn’t at the level we want it to be, but getting three points is my job and trying to find a way of getting a team not playing so well, not having our best players, the points.
We just about did it, but things didn’t go for us today, definitely didn’t go. We actually felt that in the first half that we had a lot of decisions against us, and in the end we think the late ones were really difficult to take.
Every club will have to use their squad at some time in the year.
You just don’t have everybody fit. If you only had your best players [playing every game] then other players wouldn’t want to be here.
We need to give other players opportunities. They had opportunities in the last couple of games, and it’s given all the supporters the opportunity to see the players and have some opinion as well, as me as the manager.
Look, we should have come away with three points and I’m disappointed because three points would have been a hell of a result away from home in the Premier League with what we’ve got.
In the end, we probably gave away two points.
When it was 2-1 we had a great to score a third and I thought, ‘Here we go, this is it and the game’s over here’.
We didn’t get the finish. In the first half it was 1-0 and we had a chance to make it 2-0. We didn’t take the chance and we were always giving them an opportunity to find a way.
By the way, it was an old fashioned scrap for long parts of the game. Lots of long throws, lots of free-kicks into the box and balls up to the forward players.
I’ve got no problem with that at all, but we didn’t pass it well and we never got it down and played, or had the ball under control, with too many people giving the ball away in the first half.
But look, we ground it out, we got something from the game and we’ll take it.
This is a Sheffield United team who have had a revival.
They’ve pushed teams really close – Aston Villa, Liverpool – since the manager has come in. Probably today was maybe a game they felt they had to win to give themselves any real chance of getting out of the bottom three.
We were up against it, no doubt. We had some injuries and suspensions, and also boys away. We’ve had to take our medicine a little bit today, but we stood up, we fought against them and tried to challenge it.
Just in the end, and I don’t think necessarily it was all the players’ doing, we just didn’t didn’t quite get it over the line.
