David Moyes has admitted he is concerned by his West Ham side’s lack of creativity after they were shut out by a dogged Everton at the London Stadium on Sunday.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s 50th Premier League goal was enough to earn the visitors a 1-0 victory, with the Hammers failing to score in a game for the first time this season.
Moyes had named an attacking line-up, with summer signing Mohammed Kudus handed a first League start in place of Tomas Soucek, but, barring a mishit cross from Nayef Aguerd, Said Benrahma’s volley in the dying minutes was the hosts’ only shot on target.
“That would be a problem for us,” Moyes said. “Let’s be fair that’s the first game we’ve not scored a goal in this season. But I agree, I thought we missed chances today, missed two or three opportunities to score. I don’t think it was ever going to be a game where we had nine or ten opportunities, I didn’t see it that way for either team.
“We’ve not made as many chances as we should have done. I didn’t like that at Aston Villa, didn’t think we made enough, didn’t do it at Olympiacos and today we didn’t. We attempted to but we just couldn’t really get through. We kept at it, probably got stronger in the last 15 minutes of the game. We came close once or twice, the ball never broke for us once or twice.”
Kudus has had to be patient since his arrival from Ajax, kept out of the league side despite some exciting displays in Europe and a crucial goalscoring cameo off the bench against Newcastle earlier this month.
"I thought he played well,” Moyes said. “I thought he did a lot of good things individually with the ball. When we got him the ball he was able to get himself out of trouble and help the team. It didn’t lead to us getting a shot, a goal, a cross, but I thought he did brilliantly well in a lot of occasions. We just needed it to be tied up in a combination to get us a goal or get us a bit of play to try and score."
