West Ham’s quest to secure safety from relegation in the Premier League will drag on for a little longer, after the Hammers lost 4-1 to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
David Moyes’ side were on-course to secure a hard-fought point after Marko Arnautovic’s equaliser but an error from young defender Declan Rice saw Aaron Ramsey’s cross bobble into the net, with Alexandre Lacazette then hitting twice to hand Arsenal a comfortable win.
After the match, Moyes did not hold back on his criticism of 19-year-old Rice and stated that his mistake ‘flattened the team’. Quoted by The London Evening Standard, Moyes said:
“Look we’ve all been young players, he [Rice] makes a really poor decision for the second goal. I hope he learns from it because he’s got big potential, but it really flattened the team.”
“I don’t think there was [a breakdown in communication]. Anyway if there was, if you’re a centre-back – and I’ve been one – if the ball’s getting played into the box the last thing you do is let it go.”
“Talk about it after, head it clear. To be fair we had done most things really well defensively. We’d tried to be inch perfect on our defending, trying to stop Arsenal. We knew we had players who could cause them problems if we got enough of the ball.”
West Ham sit six points clear of relegation, with clashes against Leicester City, Manchester United, Manchester City and Everton to come.
