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West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce took a dig at Manchester United’s football in their match last night, saying that the away team relied on long balls aimed at Marouane Fellaini to get any realistic attacking threat going.
The Hammers dominated their match against United and took the lead through Kouyate, but the Old Trafford outfit came back into the game, using a lot of punts into the box, and trying to build off knockdowns, which eventually saw Daley Blind finish with aplomb to level the game.
"The lads are absolutely gutted in there, and so they should be,'' Allardyce told Sky Sports. "I think it was an absolutely fantastic performance. I thought we were going to make sure we saw it through, but unfortunately for us it was not to be. I suppose in the end we couldn't cope with long-ball United. It was just thump it forward and see what they could get, and in the end it paid off for them."
He re-visited the topic at this post-match press conference, saying, "You [the media] might just criticise Louis van Gaal for playing long balls as much as you've sometimes criticised me for being direct. But it's paid off for them, so you can't knock it in the end."
The West Ham manager also spoke about how well his team were, saying he was very happy with "how well they defended as well as how well they played in possession, which was almost the perfect performance."
He was also a little disappointed that they weren’t rewarded with a win, saying, "We're back to a level we know we can play at," he added. "It was just a great shame we conceded a goal as late as we did. A punt up the middle, it was actually our player [Carl Jenkinson] that headed it, so it wasn't any great play at all."
"It's a great shame we didn't hold out, but I just feel Man United have David de Gea to thank for keeping them in the game for that long, with the amount of saves he had to make."
Watch the interview here:
