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A disappointed David Moyes had plenty of praise for his players as they fell to their first defeat of the season against the reigning Premier League champions.

And that included newcomers Edson ALvarez and James-Ward Prowse, who grabbed his second goal in four appearances to put West Ham a goal ahead in this afternonn's top of the table clash in Stratford.




"I'm really pleased with James, he's got off to a great start for us," said Moyes. "I think both him and Alvarez have done terrifically well for us.

"[As for the game] we'll play better, we'll play against teams who are perhaps a bit easier to beat than who we played against today. "

While accepting his side had perhaps enjoyed the bulk of marginal, game-changing incidents in the opening month of the 2023/24 campaign, Moyes felt that Lady Luck had well and truly deserted his team this afternoon.

The Hammers eventually lost 3-1 thanks to an 86th minute third goal for the visitors but until that point the home side, spurred on by in excess of 60,000 fans remained just one goal from taking something from the match - while City had their goalkeeper to thank for maintaining their slender advantage, with Ederson having made a fantastic save from a Kurt Zouma header.

And the boss insisted that had the marginal moments - those shots that hit the post and the spurned one on ones - gone the other way, the game might've had a quite different outcome.

"I'm not disappointed with how we played, it's just small moments in games can make big differences," he mused, when asked to sum up West Ham's first competitive defeat since losing 2-1 at relegated Leicester back in May. "You reallly can't afford to make many mistakes.




"There are small margins in football and to be fair, so far this seaosn they've gone for us. Today we played against a top, top team and we did an ok job, bits of it. Overall I have to say the players did a brilliant job in the main.

"We tried to make it as difficult as we could, we al;ways do against Man City. We try to make as manay chances as we possiubly can against Man Citry. You have to be really clinical and also, clinical defensively as well - as I said, you can't afford to make mistakes.

"I thought their first goal came at a bad time; the second was a mistake - and it turned the game."

Key to that second half recovery by City was a player Moyes and his recruitment team had targeted during the summer, winger Jérémy Doku

"Doku we liked a lot," he revealed."We played against him in pre-season and he caused us a few problems playing on the right. He can play both sides, is very firect and good one v one. He was a handful all game.

"But we had problems in all the other areas as well. I thought our right back did a brilliant job trying to deal with it the best he possibly could. He got done on one occasion, really - which was the one that really mattered."

You may watch Moyes' full press conference below.




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