West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic has admitted that his side did not start well enough during their 1-1 Premier League draw with Stoke City this afternoon.
The Hammers took 65 minutes to break the deadlock through Glenn Whelan's own goal, only for Bojan Krkic to earn a point for the Potters 10 minutes later.
Bilic was unhappy with his side's performance up to the hour mark, and acknowledged that a draw was the fairest result on the day.
"I can agree the pitch was slow but we were still slow in the first half. That shouldn't have stopped us playing one-two. We played with too many touches, and that has little to do with the pitch," he told reporters.
"I was expecting to start better than we started. We didn't have a midweek game, we looked good in training, but we were flat in that first half. It wasn't a particularly nice game of football. Neither team deserved to lose or to win. First half, we were flat, simply not good: not in the second ball, not when we had the ball, not when they had the ball.
"In the second half we changed after 60 minutes. We put a couple of strikers up and they gave us energy, quality, and we started to play much better. We scored a goal and our best part of the game was between goals. Then we gave away a very, very cheap goal. We were disappointed because we were looking for a win, after some good performances in October."
The Hammers now sit just four points clear of the relegation zone heading into consecutive matches against Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool.
Barney Corkhill
