Graham Potter offered perspective on West Ham United’s position following Saturday’s 2-0 home Premier League defeat by Crystal Palace.
The Irons were edged out by the Eagles on a cold, dark and ultimately disappointing afternoon at London Stadium, where Jean-Philippe Mateta scored two second-half goals for the visitors.
Before kick-off, Potter was without a number of senior players, including captain Jarrod Bowen and fellow forwards Michail Antonio, Crysencio Summerville and Niclas Füllkrug, and centre-back Jean-Clair Todibo, then lost Dinos Mavropanos to a red card ten minutes from full-time.
In such challenging circumstances, the Head Coach had to improvise and did so by calling upon 18-year-old Academy of Football prospects Ollie Scarles and Lewis Orford, with the latter making his first-team debut for the Club he joined at the age of five.
Speaking to West Ham TV, Potter, who took over a team which had conceded nine goals in heavy defeats by Liverpool and Manchester City just nine days ago, was philosophical in his reaction to Saturday’s defeat, and his message is that it will take time to implement the ideas he has at Rush Green and put them into practice on Premier League matchdays…
I think we're at a stage where we need to learn, we need to help the team, and we need to find solutions going forwards.
In terms of the performance today, it wasn't one that we're so happy about and obviously the result we're disappointed with because I don't think we deserved to get anything from the game.
We have to accept that as much as it's not nice to hear, we have to be honest with ourselves and say ‘Okay, we need to do better, we need to find a way to be better’ and that's where the process is, that's where the work is and that's what we need to do.
We sort of cancelled each other out in the first half.
They were probably better at it than we were, we weren't able to sustain attacks as well as we would like, we were in a little bit second to second balls and knockdowns and things like that and they seemed to be on it a bit quicker than us.
It was one of those days. It was probably a little bit flat, a little bit leggy and we were conscious of how to help our attacking players that we have and make them not do as much from a defensive perspective.
Carlos Soler had a slight problem in the week with his hamstring so we were concerned about him from the start, so it's just one of those things that we're just trying to manage everything to try and find the right balance but at the end of the day we didn't play well enough.
I thought when the subs came on, we had a response and were more on the front foot and more like how we'd want to be.
And obviously it's nice for the young lads to get on and play because I think they did well and they've done well since we've been here. So that type of enthusiasm, that type of personality we need here because we need to get the crowd behind us, we need to get them involved in the game. We weren't able to do that at the start and that's the disappointing bit and that's what we need to keep working on.
Crystal Palace’s first goal changed the complexion of the game a little bit.
We didn't quite get the pressure right and obviously they use Mateta well and the knock down to [Eberechi] Eze and they're dangerous, so we managed that situation quite well in the first half. But I think at the same time we weren't able to put enough pressure on them in the first half as well, so we're trying to find that balance.
I've got no complaints with the players in terms of how they've tried to go about things. It's just a tough week, it looked like the game was a game too far for us maybe. After everything we've put into the Fulham game the squad's a little bit stretched so we have to just lick our wounds and I think we have to stick together and go ‘right, how can we get better here, what are the solutions, how can we go forward?’
The response we've had with the players have been really positive so as much as we're disappointed now we need to get back to work and start again.
I think sometimes young players have got an enthusiasm, they've got no fear, they've got a desire to just play football and I think both of the guys who came on the pitch have trained well with us.
They're highly thought of within the Club so it's an important part of our Club going forward and it's nice to see them on the pitch. Like I said I think they did well when they came on.
Ollie has not let us down when he's been on the pitch so that was a positive and we need to cling to those.
Lucas is fine.
I think he's had two massive games in terms of the output that he's had so it was always in our mind how long he could go and what the level of performance he was able to do because like I said he's been brilliant in terms of how much he's put into the game and the team performance.
Today we looked a little bit leggy, a little bit short and that's something we have to again look to improve.
