West Ham United boss David Moyes spoke to the media at length on Sunday afternoon following his side’s 1-1 draw with Southampton at St Mary’s.
Declan Rice’s first league goal since last October rescued a point for the Hammers in the second half, cancelling out Romain Perraud’s deflected opening goal. There was however controversy surrounding Perraud’s goal, with referee Peter Bankes blocking Jarrod Bowen in the build-up. Moyes also thought his side should have had a penalty after Perraud tangled with Tomas Soucek.
Here is every word Moyes said on Southampton, the result, Rice, Said Benrahma, VAR and more.
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What was your overriding assessment, do you feel you should have taken all three points?
How have we not got three points? The real reason is the referee, the referee gets in the way of the ability for us to defend. The ball comes out and Jarrod Bowen goes to get the ball and the referee blocks Jarrod Bowen from getting to it and the boy scores from it. Ridiculous, it really is. Wait until you see the angles and the pictures and you will soon see how terrible it is that he allows it to go on.
Do you think he should have stopped play?
Well what would you normally do, you have watched football, you must know the answer to that as much as me. Obviously the ball in somebody’s favour or it might be a bounced ball between the two teams but you can’t get in the way of somebody getting it and allowing it to go and it ends up a goal.
Did you speak to the referee about it afterwards or at half-time?
I asked him about it, but I spoke to him more about the penalty kick. The penalty kick on Tomas Soucek is a judo move by the player who is marking him. There must be new rules in football, so you should check out the new rules which are that you can grab them right around the waist and you can hold them and then you can put them in a judo move, where you slam them down. He gets him and throws him right down, it’s unreal. It’s not the referee, it is VAR. Whoever was on VAR today needs to go to Specsavers, I’ve got to say.
Besides those moments, were you pleased with performance?
We played really well. I actually thought there were signs in the first half where we played really well, I think Southampton had a spell where they had a couple of chances. We probably, having no centre halves today, gave them a big opportunity. We were stronger up front, we weren’t strong as we should have been, gave them that opportunity in the early part of the game in different parts. Once we got settled, we made a lot of opportunities but we didn’t take them. We didn’t hit the target in the first half, we did in the second half. We certainly deservedly got something, but I felt we should have got more points.
Does you having 25 shots and four on target tell the story?
Well, there’s your answer. That’s telling you that we didn’t get them on target, which is what it felt like. It felt like for all the good play, we needed to get a bit more and it took a really good goal from Dec to get us that.
Are you pleased to see Declan Rice score his first league goal for 12 months, after asking for him to score more?
Dec can do that, no problem. It’s not that he can’t do it, if we can get him in the right areas of the field he’s more than capable.
How are Kurt Zouma and Craig Dawson?
One’s got an injury and one’s got an illness so we’ve had to go without them. Obviously, we’ve got no Nayef Aguerd at the moment so we were rocked terribly from an injury in midweek. It’s really set us back from how we want to play.
Will they be okay for Wednesday?
No idea. No idea.
Can you understand the fans wanting Michail Antonio and Gianluca Scamacca to have played together late on?
I can understand it. We were gung-ho, we were just looking at somebody who we thought had run out of steam. We got him further than we’ve got him in any other game, so no problem.
VAR said they didn’t intervene with the goal because referee said he didn’t touch it. What are you thoughts on that?
No, that’s right, but if that’s right then because he doesn’t touch it then it means he has to go around the referee. The referee got in his way. Maybe you just have to say that the referee was in a really bad position. Sometimes it’s as simple as that, you might have to say: ‘No, the referee got himself in a really bad position’. He got himself in a position where the ball comes - and, to be fair, Tomas Soucek should’ve cleared it better - it goes to Jarrod and the referee’s right in his line. Jarrod can’t round the referee to get the ball.
Did you suffer with team balance by switching to a back five without Kurt Zouma and Craig Dawson?
Yeah, we had to alter what we were doing. And, by the way, I thought in the main we did it very well. Considering what we had, I thought we played well enough, just couldn’t turn our opportunities into goals. We had moments where we weren’t good enough defensively but you’d have to say the bigger part was that our attacking play was very good and it just missed the finishing. Our build-up play and our opportunities are getting better and it’s good to see.
What did you make of Said Benrahma’s impact from the bench?
I think we want him to be involved in assists and goals and hopefully he can play his part. He has done in the last couple of years and we continue to hope he will this year.
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