David Moyes has every reason to be pleased with the team’s performance against City of course but had hoped the changes he made might have worked out better than they did.
The Irons took the lead for the fifth top-flight game in a row to start the 2023/24 season through James Ward-Prowse but were finally beaten by the best club side in the world and the reigning treble winners.
It was a determined defensive display and another world-class performance from goalkeeper Alphonse Areola.
Jérémy Doku scored in 43 seconds within 60 seconds of the restart which saw the wheels start to fall off for the Hammers and we were finally broken by City’s resistance in the closing quarter through goals from Bernardo Silva and Erling Haaland.
In between, Kurt Zouma and Michail Antonio were denied by Ederson, Edson Álvarez was forced off through fatigue and Moyes sent on Saïd Benrahma and Mohammed Kudus in pursuit of victory, but ultimately the champions proved too strong.
Afterwards Moyes tol www.whufc.com “I thought for long periods today we were always in the game and always had a chance.
Even at 2-1 down, we were still in the game and we were more than in the game when we were 1-0 up, going in at half-time feeling really confident and coming out feeling ‘hey, let’s do it again and get through this 45 minutes’, but the timing of the first goal wasn’t good.
I was more disappointed with the second goal. I thought it was poor, the second goal but, overall, I was pleased with how the players have performed and what we’ve tried to do.
The game had started to get away from us a little bit when it was one-each, and we wanted to see if we could make some changes and be positive and try and alter it, but it probably didn’t work as we’d have liked.