West Ham United manager David Moyes has explained why he replaced winger Said Benrahma during Sunday's 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palce.
The Hammers suffered defeat at the London Stadium for the first time since August but had got into the lead in the first half through Said Benrahma's thunderous strike. A defensive error gifted Palace an equaliser on the stroke of half-time, with Wilfried Zaha levelling before Michael Olise's deflected effort got the Eagles all three points in the final moments of second half stoppage time.
In a bid to improve at 1-1 and try and secure a win, Moyes opted to make a double change and bring on Flynn Downes and Manuel Lanzini in place of Benrahma and Tomas Soucek.
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West Ham fans did not hide their feelings, with a huge chorus of boos at Benrahma coming off followed by sarcastic cheers at Soucek being replaced.
Asked why he took Benrahma off, Moyes said that the Algerian had been carrying a knee injury that had made him a doubt for the game.
“I don’t know about that. I think if you are watching the game from there, I actually think we get better,” said Moyes about taking Benrahma and Soucek off.
“I thought our football was better and we controlled a bit more of the game. I thought we looked more likely to score at that period of the game as well.
“You wouldn’t see it, Said [Benrahman] was badly strapped up on his knee and was touch and go for the game. It was about 60 minutes and I didn’t think he was moving as free as what he could do.
“Overall, we made the choice and I actually thought at that period we got slightly better. Unlucky that we lose a goal in the last second.”
While Benrahma was playing through a knee injury, Moyes felt that the former Brentford winger had done very little to impact the game after opening the scoring in east London.
Indeed, Moyes felt that despite the criticism from the home crowd, he did not feel that Benrahma’s performance was deserving of keeping him on the pitch.
"I thought he scored a good goal, I don’t know if he had much of an impact after,” added Moyes.
“There’s a lot of people, a lot of experts out there isn’t there? You have to make the decisions how you think gets you the best chance and today, you can decide what they were or how they were.
“I felt we probably improved in the last 20 minutes of the game with the ball and gave ourselves one or two opportunities."
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