Ben Johnson admits West Ham United must avoid digging themselves a ‘massive hole’ and having to try to mount comebacks to achieve their goals this season, via the Irons website.
The Hammers left themselves with a mountain to climb during their 3-1 loss at Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday. An own goal by Kurt Zouma after just nine minutes put the home side ahead, and Heung-Min Son further punished David Moyes’ men a quarter of an hour later.
Said Benrahma pulled the Irons back into the game soon after, but the Hammers could not find the equalising goal. Son then secured his brace two minutes from time, to move Spurs above Moyes’ men into fifth-place. West Ham fell to seventh in the Premier League table.
West Ham had mounted a key comeback three days before the east London side travelled to north London. A Tomas Soucek header and an extra-time tap-in by Andriy Yarmolenko saw the Irons overturn a first-leg deficit to knock Sevilla out of the Europa League last 16.
The Hammers will now face Lyon after the international break for a place in the semi-final. They also have eight Premier League fixtures remaining to try and secure qualification for a UEFA tournament next season. But they now need results elsewhere to go in their favour.
Ben Johnson admits West Ham must avoid digging themselves a ‘massive hole’
Johnson admits West Ham must learn lessons from giving sides the advantage in games if the Irons are to achieve their goals in the coming months. Ideally, he would also like to see Moyes’ men be the ones taking the lead and putting pressure on the Hammers’ opponents
“Obviously, when the opposition score you wake up and that brought us into the game,” Johnson said. “We scored a brilliant goal with Said. But we gave them too much, too early, unfortunately, and we found ourselves trying to come out of a massive hole.
“That’s something we don’t want to be in in the last nine games of the season. We want to be in front, trying to keep as many clean sheets as possible.”
West Ham have now won just three of their last nine Premier League games to two draws and four defeats. They have also taken the lead in five of those nine games, but only went on to beat Watford, Wolves and Aston Villa. They drew with Leicester and Newcastle.
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