Pellegrini: I am not happy but we have a lot more days

Manuel Pellegrini was disappointed with his West Ham side’s display in their 2-1 defeat at home to Crystal Palace.

The Hammers lost a one-goal lead to go down to the Eagles, who were helped by a close VAR call which overturned a linesman’s flag against Jordan Ayew for the Palace winner.

But Pellegrini was far from happy with his team. He said: "I am not happy with the performance. Crystal Palace are a very dangerous team, because they have fast players, especially in transition.

“We defended well in that sense. We created chances, maybe we need to create more, we needed to score another goal. As always, set pieces, if you review the amount of goals teams score from set pieces, it is very high. Unfortunately for us we were lacking there.

“We created chances for 45 minutes to be at least one goal in front. We scored that goal in the second half and then after that the penalty the refereed decided it was intentional hand and the VAR decision decided the game. I don't really remember one chance of Palace shooting. Set pieces are important.”

Pundits were talking up the Hammers prior to this game, even making comparisons with the team which finished fifth in the Premier League in 1998-1999.

But Pellegrini dismissed such talk, adding: “We are not thinking about the position we want to finish. We must try to play the games in the way we are playing so far, and try to add the most amount of points especially at home. That's why it is difficult to accept to lose these three points.

“People can talk all day about what they see but we must be very clear about what football is. The Premier League is a difficult league, we lost three points. We had the chance to be in the third position today but we have a lot more days.”