West Ham boss Graham Potter says sympathises with supporters after their dismal draw with Southampton. The Hammers stuttered to a 1-1 draw with the already-relegated Saints at the London Stadium on Sunday.
Jarrod Bowen’s second-half strike had given the hosts the lead, only for Lesley Ugochukwu’s injury time equaliser to ensure a share of the points for the visitors. And it’s fair to say, the home support were less than enthused come the final whistle.
A host of fans had already chosen to walk out of the stadium before the game reached injury time, despite West Ham’s winning position. And as the Saints claimed their point, jeers came raining down from the stands at the final whistle.
For his part, Potter claims he can accept the angry reaction given the poor performance of his side. Speaking after the full-time whistle, the former Brighton and Chelsea boss said: “Sure [I understand that]. The performance wasn’t good enough and the result isn’t what we want. So I completely understand that.”
He added: “Southampton were worthy of a point, for sure. Our performance wasn’t good enough, first half especially. Nowhere near what we wanted to do. Credit to Southampton but we need to do better with the balance between attack and defence.
“In the modern Premier League, you have to do both sides of the game – we’re struggling to do that, to sustain attacks, keep the ball well to create chances. We struggled. The we looked was in transition, which is where the goal came from, but overall we’re disappointed.”
Potter now has just three wins from his 13 games in charge of West Ham. They sit 16th after their latest result – and they might have been nervously looking over their shoulders but for a a dismal bottom three.
Potter believes a lack of ruthlessness and consistency is costing his side. He said: “You have to score the second goal, do the right things, attack well, not give the ball away and unfortunately we didn’t do that well enough.
“There are probably not too many players who can say ‘I had a really good game today’. We need to look at that collective to find out the reasons – it’s not a lack of effort. But we’re suffering a bit at home, we’re suffering here. We need to do better.”
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A furious Niclas Fullkrug went further in his post-match interview, launching a scathing attack on his team-mates.
“I am very angry, the Germany striker told Sky Sports. “Not disappointed, just angry for what we did after the goal. It was difficult to bring the boys back to push up. We didn’t push up anymore. We tried but we didn’t have the ability or the motivation to push up again.
“I’m very, very angry that we played like this because we had some minutes where we showed what we can do against an opponent like that at home.
“We showed that we can have good possession, that we have can go in behind and that we have the chances to score again. But the motivation, sorry we were s***. I’m very angry.”
West Ham are back in action next Saturday as they take on Potter’s former club Brighton at the Amex Stadium.
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