Embattled West Ham manager Julen Lopetegui insists his team was ‘much better’ than Leicester City despite a damaging night at the King Power Stadium.
The Spaniard, who faced jeers of ‘sacked in the morning’ from his own supporters, watched as the Foxes marked Ruud van Nistelrooy’s first game with a vital 3-1 victory.
He also watched as his own side enjoyed 61 per cent possession and produced 31 shots compared to the hosts’ eight – only to be felled by sucker punches from Jamie Vardy, Bilal El Khannouss and Patson Daka.
Lopetegui felt his side deserved more. “I think [keeping] the clean sheet is key,” he told the club website. “We worked in two matches recently with two clean sheets and we have to be more consistent, trying to threaten the opposition’s goal, but at the same time defending better.
“In the first half they had one chance and they scored from the one chance we conceded at the start of the match. We have to avoid this kind of action. It was one bad decision in the moment and we jumped [out of defence and Jamie Vardy ran through to score] but after this, I repeat, we did everything we had to do but we didn’t score. We had a lot of chances, so we have to stand up, looking and thinking about the next match.
“I am sure that if we are able to have this number of chances, we are going to win a lot of matches. I think that’s why today, I repeat, it was one good way to go forward, but we need to do better and not concede the first goal and be more effective in the opposite box.
“We have to do that because when you have this number of chances you are going to score normally, but in the Premier League the level of the teams means they are going to have one or two chances. When you are losing, you are going to concede more space and that’s what happened today.
“In the meantime, I think we have been much better than them, had a lot of chances in the opposite box, but that’s the way it went.”
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