David Moyes called West Ham’s abysmal defeat at Brighton one of the worst results of his tenure and says he “totally understands” fans’ dissent.
The Hammers were thrashed 4-0 at the Amex Stadium on Saturday afternoon, with Alexis Mac Allister, Joel Veltman, Kauro Mitoma and Danny Welbeck all on the scoresheet for the home side.
A week ago, the Irons had themselves hammered Nottingham Forest 4-0 to move out of the relegation zone and ease the sense of crisis around the club.
However, the manner of defeat on the south coast saw any good feeling quickly evaporate as the travelling fans turned on Moyes during a wretched second-half.
“It wasn’t good,” Moyes said. “We’ve not played well today, we let ourselves down.
“Certainly in my second time back it would be one of the worst [results] and one of our worst performances as well.
“We’ve not had too many days as bad as today, we’ve not had many and you don’t get allowed many. I’ve got to say felt a bad day for us, it didn’t feel a good day for us and we have to try and get that picked up.”
Moyes’ decision to replace Said Benrahma at half-time with the score at 1-0 was met with disapproval from the away end and that turned to outright anger as Brighton ran riot, with chants of “sacked in the morning” and “you don’t know what you’re doing” directed at the Scot.
"Totally understand,” Moyes said of the fan backlash. “They’ve been watching a really good team for the last three years, a team that’s been finishing sixth or seventh in the Premier League, been watching a team that’s got into the semi-final of Europe, a team whose just won the group in Europe again, so I understand it’s hard to come and watch that performance today.
“I would hope that they have seen a lot in the last few years that they’ve got something to hang on to.”
It was a particularly chattering afternoon for right-back Ben Johnson, who was at fault for the first three Seagulls goals.
“It was a tough day for Ben but he’s a young boy, that’s the way it is, you have to learn on the job sometimes and hopefully he learns a lot from today,” Moyes said, as he bemoaned more costly defensive mistakes having also seen his side punished late on at Old Trafford in the midweek FA Cup defeat.
“Huge, huge, individual errors in midweek and the individual errors today. You can ask the manager why people are upset and why people are questioning things. When it comes down to it at this level, it’s a lot to do with individual performances as well. One or two at the minutes have not quite been good enough at the moment.”
