Boss Graham Potter insists his West Ham United side can take plenty of encouragement from Sunday’s narrow 2-1 defeat at Premier League title favourites Liverpool.
The Hammers responded brilliantly to going behind to Luis Díaz’s 18th-minute opener, following a fast start from the hosts, and hit the crossbar through Mohammed Kudus before the Ghanaian and Dinos Mavropanos helped themselves to further chances before the break.
Despite taking on a team who went into the weekend eleven points clear at the top of the standings, and who had dropped points at home on just three occasions in the league this term, Potter’s troops continued as the better side after the break, and after Jarrod Bowen was denied one-on-one by Alisson Becker, finally got their goal courtesy of Liverpool defender Andrew Robertson with just four minutes left.
Showing their true title credentials, Liverpool conjured up their own response and dealt a cruel blow to the Irons in the 89th minute when Virgil van Dijk headed home a corner to seal the points and leave their visitors empty-handed.
There was still time for substitute Niclas Füllkrug to hit the woodwork with an impressive header, one of eleven West Ham shots on the day, and at full-time Potter chose to focus on the positives from the game, rather than his obvious disappointment.
Having run the top-flight’s best side so close, after already beating second-placed Arsenal on their own turf in February, Potter’s players have demonstrated what they are truly capable of over recent weeks, and the Head Coach is focused on channelling that sentiment into the last six games of the season, and boosting their current 17th-place position.
I’m devastated for the players because they gave everything in the game.
It was a really strong performance; probably the best performance we’ve had.
The balance between defence and attack was really good over the course of the game. I think we suffered at the start. It was an emotional atmosphere, and Liverpool came out with big intensity, moved the ball fast and it was difficult for us.
At the same time, we stuck in there and were resilient, and that hasn’t always been the case. And we grew into the game, I thought, in the last part of the first half. We had some opportunities and hit the bar.
In the second half we put on a really strong performance.
We created some big opportunities and hit the bar again. We scored the goal, and then you start to think you’ve got something to show for your effort and for the quality.
But, maybe that’s the difference. The team at the top of the league has the mentality to keep going and see it out, and unfortunately we don’t take anything from the game.
There are a lot of positives for us.
As I said, the performance was strong from our perspective. We created some opportunities, and we pushed a good, top team back.
Defensively, I thought we were quite solid. As solid as you can be with Liverpool. They’re so dangerous, and their transition is so fast, but we managed it quite well.
And like I said, in the second half, we created some really good opportunities.
We’ve been competitive in all the games, and we just have to get over the line now.
I think we’ve had a couple of halves that we’ve not been happy with at all in recent months, against Brentford at home and the first half of Wolves away. Apart from that, we’ve been really competitive.
Without being fantastic in terms of where we want to move to, we’ve certainly been competitive and together. Today was probably a step on again, set over the course of the game. Performance-wise, it’s as strong as we’ve been.
So, we have to stick to that and concentrate on the positives and then go again next weekend, against Southampton.
It’s going to be another big game next week, and we want to do well.
We know that no game in this league is easy, but we need to try to be positive and win and take the three points.
We’ll need the fans again. The Supporters here today were fantastic, I thought. It was a brilliant atmosphere all afternoon, and our fans certainly contributed to that.
So, we’ll need the same again at home. But it’s up to us as a team to play well and if we play like we did today, we’ve got a chance.
