Manuel Pellegrini held the same view as many last night – we should have finished Liverpool off.

There’s no disagreement because although Liverpool made it a tense second half, the Hammers defence was in tremendous nick, held on and then we created threatening counter attacks.

The manager had said before the game he had no fear of Liverpool because anybody can beat anybody at this level and so it very nearly turned out.

The Hammers played throughout like the big team the manager has been demanding and none of that was lost on the boss who was thrilled with their performance but disappointed at the eventual outcome.

He made his feelings very clear on a number of issues notably the opening Liverpool goal which must count as a nearly criminal miss by the linesman.

There was no hint of relief after recent games though because Pellegrini knows what he has in this squad even with so many injuries harming our chances.

He said:“I was pleased with the performance because I thought we played a very good game, but I’m disappointed with the result because they scored a goal which was clearly offside.

“We missed three or four chances, especially in the first 35 minutes, which could have finished the game. We missed those opportunities so we had a draw in a game which we could have won.

“We played with the pace we had shown in other games again. In the Premier League you can’t play against anyone if you don’t play at a high pace.

“If you give time and space to players, they will make good decisions and score goals. We worked similarly tonight to we did against Arsenal, but we created more chances today.

“We then lost three games away from home but I think the team we saw tonight is the team we must see from now until the end of the season.”

“We always work hard on the set pieces, but it depends on the taker and the finisher. You must believe me that we worked on set pieces exactly as much as we did against Bournemouth, against Wimbledon, against every team.”