Sam Allardyce disappointed West Ham couldn't ward off Arsenal threat until the break

 
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Standard Sport16 April 2014

Sam Allardyce felt West Ham might have taken something away from Emirates Stadium had his players taken their slender lead into the break.

The Hammers had not played since the home defeat to Liverpool on April 6, which means a 3-1 loss to Arsenal was their second on the bounce and Sam Allardyce's side are not yet safe from relegation.

Six wins from their last 11 games has seen the Hammers climb away from trouble but they are currently seven points above the drop zone with four matches remaining.

And when Matt Jarvis headed home the opener it looked like the visitors might record an unlikely win, but Allardyce was disappointed his side couldn't create more before the Gunners levelled the tie through Lukas Podolski.

Olivier Giroud and a second from Podolski ensured Arsenal claimed the points, but Allardyce was left to rue a lack of creativity.

He said: "We'd done so much up until then (when Arsenal scored the equaliser). To get the goal I think we deserved it.

"But probably the one thing that disappointed me was that we didn't create more from our opportunities in the first half.

Five things we learnt from Arsenal v West Ham

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"We finally got a very good goal and I think that the key was to hold on to that until half-time and then say to the lads, 'going out there now there's more pressure going to come on Arsenal, the home fans half-expect them to beat us today'.

"That would have been more pressure on them, but we released the pressure on them by making two errors for both the goals and allowed them to get in front."

The Hammers boss was pleased with his side's performance, but admitted they need points on the board from their final four matches.

He added: "Overall (it was) a good performance but it makes no difference in the end....you're here to play and get results, you're not here to play well and lose.

"I've got a lot - we've got a lot - to do between now and the end of the season in terms of making sure we try and get as many points as we can and as many victories as we can on the board."

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