West Ham manager Paul Konchesky aired his devastation for his players after a second-half goal flurry from Manchester United broke a heady defensive resilience from the Hammers to consign them to a fourth successive league defeat.
Konchesky’s side had competently stifled the now-league leaders for nearly an hour, but after Hawa Cissoko felled Alessia Russo inside the area, Katie Zelem broke the deadlock from the penalty spot.
Zelem’s penalty ignited a salvo of goals from United that proved insurmountable for Konchesky’s attack, with a goal from Hayley Ladd and a brace from substitute Lucia Garcia giving United an eventual 4-0 victory in front of a crowd of nearly 28,000 at Old Trafford.
Konchesky was left picking out the bones of a positive but ultimately limited defensive performance.
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“It’s a tough one to take,” he told the club’s website. “I think for 55 minutes we were very good. I’m devastated for the players to be fair because for that amount of time we managed to match them – which is a good achievement.
“But when you concede one it’s always going to be a mountain to climb, and after two or three then there’s no coming back.”
The loss extends West Ham’s winless streak to seven league matches as they continue to hunt for a first league win since the turn of the year, while United returned to the top of the table on goal difference over Chelsea.
Konchesky insisted that the defensive mettle shown early on to frustrate such a potent attack were building blocks for the remainder of the season.
“We have to take the positives that we showed until we conceded,” he said. “We need to use those in our next match to try and get some points on the board to keep moving up the table. There’s a lot of positives that we can take from tonight for sure – but at the same time there’s plenty that we can improve on.
“Every single one of the players will take something from this experience. A lot of them will not have experienced anything like this before, it’s a massive step up when you’re playing in front of a crowd of nearly 30 thousand. It’s something that they can tick off and hopefully it will help them deal with that again in the future.”
West Ham remain seventh in the table but drifting further away from the table’s top as they continue their tepid league record.
A league clash with Liverpool is next on the horizon and Konchesky welcomes the opportunity to place some distance between themselves and the table’s bottom as well as mount a positive end to the season with just six matches remaining.
“Liverpool next weekend is a massive game,” he said. “We’re going to need all of our supporters behind us – stick with us and support us because we will need it against a tough Liverpool side.
“This group has what it takes to get back to form and improve, and we need to do that quickly.”
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