West Ham manager David Moyes admitted that the Hammers have played better teams than Eintracht Frankfurt after defeat in the Europa League semi-finals.
West Ham went to Germany for the second leg 2-1 down on aggregate. They conceded in the first minute in London and despite fighting back to 1-1, Frankfurt won 2-1 on the night.
In Thursday’s second leg, the visitors were on the back foot early on again when Aaron Cresswell received a red card.
Rafael Borre subsequently made it 1-0 and 3-1 on aggregate. While West Ham had chances to come back, they lacked a cutting edge and Frankfurt stood firm.
Speaking to BT Sport, Moyes said: “Really disappointed, things didn’t go for us on the night. Small things didn’t quite happen and I’m really proud of the players.
“How they played with 10 men was fantastic and how they stayed in it. Other teams would have folded and maybe ended up losing two or 3-0, but the boys here are great – tough boys.”
Moyes claimed he had “lots of complaints” for Cresswell’s red card, but would not go into detail. The left-back got the wrong side of Jens Petter Hauge, who was in on goal, and brought the Norwegian down.
On West Ham‘s second-half performance, Moyes added: “I thought we tried, we created chances. Actually, we might have had better chances than Frankfurt did at that time.
“But look, we congratulate Frankfurt. They go through, we don’t, so we give them our best wishes.
“If we’re being honest, we probably lost the game in the first 30 seconds of the game at the London Stadium where we conceded a goal. From that moment, we were chasing the game.
“We’re going to try to everything we can [to qualify again], we’ve enjoyed being in the competition. I don’t know if we’ve enjoyed the officiating, but we’ve enjoyed the competition.”
On feeling proud of his players’ run, he said: “I don’t feel any of that at the moment, I just feel disappointment because I think this was a chance. We’ve probably played better teams than Frankfurt.”
Moyes apologises for red card
Moyes himself also had a moment to forget after he received a red card in the second half.
As frustrations boiled over, the Scot kicked the ball back at a ball boy who was reluctant to give it to him.
Moyes said: “I kicked the ball back at the ball boy, I apologise for that. He threw it very softly at me.”
As for where West Ham go from here, they can still qualify for next season’s Europa League.
“I think we’ve got a pretty good team, so we can try again,” the manager said.
“We’ve learned a lot of things, we’ll get wiser as we go along and do it a bit more often hopefully.”
West Ham return to action on Sunday when facing relegated Norwich at Carrow Road.
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