West Ham were sent crashing out of the Europa League at the first hurdle this morning after a 1-0 loss to Astra Giurgiu.
A goal from playmaker Filipe Teixeira was enough to see the Romanian champions progress from the second leg fixture, after the first meeting ended in a 1-1 draw.
West Ham manager Slaven Bilic pulled no punches in pointing out a lacklustre performance from his players as a reason for the disastrous loss.
“I would like to congratulate Astra as they deserved it,” said Bilic.
“It is a huge frustration because I said before the game that this was one of the most important games of the year for us.
“I said after the Bournemouth game that in the Premier League you can make it up, but this was like a final because you need to win to go through, therefore the disappointment is massive.
The Hammers were hardly anywhere close to full strength for the contest, with a horrid run of injuries cutting down the majority of their starting squad. However, Bilic was hardly looking at these misfortunes to cover up this morning’s result.
“OK, we can always find excuses like missing players and that we should have scored the chances we created and all that, but we didn’t play good. In the first half, we didn’t play with desire as a team, it was all individuals and we were second best.
It was an outcome which took an emotional toll on the manager, seeing the exit from Europa at such an early stage as a waste of what had been achieved in 2015-16.
“Of course I am angry and frustrated and everything but I’m much more disappointed than angry, because we really wanted to go through to the Europa League.
“That’s why we tried so hard last season, to have this opportunity.”
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