Saturday 10 January 2015 18:27, UK
West Ham assistant boss Neil McDonald was disappointed to see his side draw 1-1 at Swansea after a strong performance at the Liberty Stadium.
Taking charge of the team in the absence of Sam Allardyce due to illness, McDonald saw the Hammers take the lead through Andy Carroll only to be pegged back when Mark Noble could only divert a Bafetimbi Gomis header into his own net.
West Ham had chances to win it late on but had to settle for a point and McDonald felt that was the least the visitors deserved.
“After looking at all the half-chances that Swansea have had and obviously scoring from a corner, we’re very disappointed that we haven’t come away with the three points,” he told Sky Sports.
“We created very good chances and Andy Carroll’s goal was the pick of the bunch. We’ve had a couple cleared off the line and a couple go just wide of the post so we’ve got at them.”
Swansea’s equaliser came while West Ham centre-back James Collins was off the field getting treatment for a head injury and that was a further cause of frustration for McDonald.
“He’s got a knock on the head and the referee has indicated that he can come back on the pitch and then said to our medical staff that he’s got to go off the pitch,” he added.
“So there was a little bit of a misunderstanding happened there. The corner has come in and obviously Ginge is one of our markers, we haven’t cleared it and they’ve scored.
“We’re disappointed when we concede set plays because we work very hard on them.”
Although Allardyce was not present at the Liberty Stadium, the West Ham boss made his presence felt and McDonald confirmed he was the man on the other end of the phone throughout the match.
“It certainly wasn’t Pizza Express or anything like that,” said McDonald. “He was just trying to give us a few pointers and things like that from what he was seeing on TV and we tried to relate that to the players.”
