David Moyes gave his post-match press conference to the media after and this is what he said.
Assessment of the game?
Resilient in the end would have been the positive in a game in which we didn’t play very well.
Dunk’s goal, any complaints?
I’ve had a chance to look back and it hits his arm, or looks as if it does. I thought that if it led to a goal then it would be chalked off. if it didn’t hit his arm then that is different but if it hits his arm and then leads to a goal, which it did, I think the rules tell me it should be given as handball.
If I was Lewis Dunk I’d be really disappointed if it was cancelled or not given but overall if that is the rules we’re playing to we need to know why VAR chose not to cancel it. I do think it is important that we do get to hear why these are [made]. I don’t think anyone is convinced by the answers we are getting, from even the referee pundits on it so we’d like it to come from the people who are making the decisions.
A poor first half from your team?
I would like to put it down to how Brighton played more than anything to do with us. We never got in the right positions to cause them problems and to disrupt their play. I was hoping to get to half time to fix it but we lost a goal just a minute before half time.
Is Tomas Soucek you new Marouane Fellaini?
Tomas Soucek scores West Ham’s equaliser against Brighton (Image: Kirsty Wigglesworth – Pool/Getty Images)
If Tomas Soucek has a career like Marouane Fellaini’s because he has played for top clubs and Belgium have been No1 in the world for quite a long time and so many of the managers have chosen him at the club, whether it be Jose Mourinho or Van Gaal, they’ve all chosen him in the big games.
You’d certainly pick Tomas Soucek in the big games because his ability to score from midfield. If I had a criticism it would be that I need to find a way to get him in the box more. Even tonight he had another chance to make it 3-2 at the back post. On a night where I don’t think we or Tomas played so well, he still came up with a goal.
There is a video of the ball hitting Dunk’s hand, but Stockley Park saying they couldn’t see it?
I know I make loads of mistakes so if they are all making mistakes and they said “hey, I got that wrong” then I would accept it. I wouldn’t be happy with it, but I’d accept it.
We are not getting anybody coming out and clarifying things for the media, for the managers, the players, if it was or if it wasn’t.
My idea, we need the clairity and I don’t think we are getting it from the people that should be giving it to us.
Now, if that’s the referee involved and why he made the decision, or if that comes from somewhere else, we would like to know. To the naked eye, it looks as if it hits his arm.
Started without any creative players today, did that cost you?
In hindsight it was not the right decision.
It was something we had discussed, I tried to get Jarrod and Seb playing up front together and hope that the two of them would give us something different.
We tried to find a solution to losing Arthur [Masuaku] and Micky Antonio, we are looking closely to see if there are other things in the squad.
We had a balance in the team and a way we played which helped us and we are now trying to find that again.
Obviously we are missing Micky but even Arthur for the balance. In many ways that balance improved Aaron Cresswell’s game and gave us a lot of good wins at the start of the season so we are looking for a way of finding back to it. Young Ben [Johnson] did fine at it but we decided on a 5-3-2.
In hindsight the second half was much better.
Does it concern you that Stockley Park doesn’t have the same angles that Sky does?
They must do, surely?
Does that sound like them trying to get out of it by saying they don’t have that angel? Because it would be ridiculous if they don’t have that angle.
We didn’t have one here the other day when the linesman couldn’t see if the ball went out of play either so we have a couple of real raw decisions. We have had some good ones but recently, we haven’t.
The worst thing is the lack of clarity and explanation. If we got that, we will feel happier but I don’t think the Premier League are doing a good job of explaining it either,
Impressed with Brighton?
I think they have a style that can hurt you, they did in the first half to us. In the main they haven’t scored many but gave them a terrible first goal and a debatable second so from that point of view it was not good
Brighton are a good team, they will cause other teams problems then if they get the goals. Thankfully we’re able to stick at it and in the end maybe finished stronger but not enough to get a winning goal.