In the aftermath of a bitter defeat at the London Stadium on Sunday, Oliver Skipp gave an honest assessment of the moment that decided the game.
Having gone close to breaking the deadlock a couple of times during the first period, we fell behind to Michail Antonio’s close-range finish from a corner with 18 minutes left as West Ham consigned us to our first loss in three Premier League games and fourth overall in the top flight so far this season – all in London derbies.
Skippy was his usual hard-working self in central midfield, but was left kicking himself at the way the Hammers claimed the upper hand.
“We’re really disappointed in the manner we conceded,” he admitted. “We knew before the game that they’d be strong from set pieces and there were things we could do better for the goal, myself included.
“I don’t think there were too many chances for either team and I thought we were in control, especially in the first half. You know they are going to have a few counter-attacks with the pace they’ve got up front, but it’s a goal that’s disappointing, and we need to look at that area and where we can improve.”
Improvement is always the name of the game and we now move into a crucial run of fixtures, with Burnley up next in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night (7.45pm) before we host Manchester United on Saturday (5.30pm).
“We’ll have to look back because there are areas we can do better,” Skippy added. “We had a lot of possession, but perhaps we didn’t feed the strikers enough… a lot of things to work on.”
(official page)
