'Muddling' Hammers frustrate Moyes after Brighton draw

David Moyes remains upbeat despite his West Ham side only managing a 2-2 draw at home to Brighton and Hove Albion.

Although the Hammers came back from going a goal down on two occasions, through Ben Johnson - his first Premier League strike - and a late header by Tomas Soucek, it was a very disjointed display, with Brighton considerably unfortunate.

There would have been no justifiable complaints if the Seagulls had possessed the self-discipline to protect their lead and see the game out. Yet for all the frustration at the lacklustre performance by the east London outfit, they remain 10th in the table.

While Moyes also criticised VAR for allowing Brighton's second goal from Lewis Dunk to stand, he did concede the afternoon was disappointing for West Ham, despite the point gained.

“The positives I take from it were that we were resilient, we kept at it and we eventually found a way of getting something out of it, but it wasn’t anything close to how I wanted it to look like or how I think we can play,” said the West Ham boss.

“I thought we were really disappointing in a lot of aspects today, but we’re in a little period just now when the injuries that we’ve had are just starting to catch up on us and we’re muddling through in certain areas, but overall I’m pleased that it was much better in the second half than it was in the first.

“We’re having to come from behind and it was such a bad (first) goal (to concede), the way we gave it away was so bad and untidy, so I was disappointed with that."

Brighton had dominated the majority of possession in the first half and were well worthy of their lead at the break, thanks to Neal Maupay.

In response, Moyes made two half time substitutions - Andriy Yarmolenko and Manuel Lanzini coming on for Jarrod Bowen and Mark Noble respectively - to try and inject some extra purpose, which paid off to an extent.

“I thought an aspect of it was that we got the ball in the box more often," added Moyes. "We looked more likely to get something from the game, which we hadn’t looked like doing in the first half.

“So, I’m pleased we took a point, but disappointed we didn’t play better and take three points because it’s a home game, but the way the Premier League is all the games are tough, Brighton are a good team and we knew it was going to be like that, but we didn’t cope well enough with them in the first half.”