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Noble missed your only chance at very end?

“Yeah we didn’t create enough chances throughout the game, that would be obvious. We pushed, but that was about all I could say we did. We sort of never really had anything clear-cut and the one we did get fell to Mark right at the end.”

Three half-time subs - were you fuming?

“Yeah, I think I could have probably made a couple more if I was allowed. I just thought we passed the ball away, kicked the ball out of the pitch, we didn’t have any control of the game at the time in anyway, so I wanted to see if I could do something that would make a difference. I think it got better, the second half got much better, but we didn’t manufacture anything that was clear-cut.”

Lack of effort?

“No, it definitely wasn’t a lack of effort. The players were determined to do well. We were all prepared to do well, but we didn’t show good quality and I think West Brom played well for a period in the first half. You can see why they are top of the league because they have a good momentum. But we didn’t do as well as we should have done.”

But this was West Brom’s reserves and your first-team…

“Yeah, totally accept it and it was pretty much a West Ham first team today. So we did everything we possibly could to get through in the cup. I saw it as a chance, I wanted to give the supporters a Cup run if we could. You can say sometimes it’s a distraction, but I thought it could be helpful for us to get through. In truth, the only player we didn’t start was Mark Noble. We tried to keep him for the games coming up, the others were all carrying bits of knocks and nursing Antonio through a bit.”

So how worried are you by that?

“You see it a lot in cup ties, so you have to be careful what you read into it. You see a lot of upsets in this competition, much bigger than West Ham and West Brom over the years. But I agree with your point. We have to play better and we didn’t play better today.”

Is the problem bigger than you thought?

"I came with the same problem last time, we were in a difficult position and it has not changed. What I need to do is find something which can give us inspiration. For example the last time Marko Arnautovic gave us inspiration, someone who could score, we could play in behind, he gave us a runner, something different.

"But I was more disappointed with the amount of opportunities we gave up because the one thing you have to be is hard to beat. If you’re not hard to beat then the other team will find opportunities to score against us and at the moment we don’t necessarily look like we have got loads of goals so we have to find a way to be much tougher to beat at the moment and we were too easy to play against today."

Does today affect your resources for Wednesday? Probably hoping not to use Noble?

Yeah and I think most people would agree with the idea that it was right. We have Liverpool and Brighton next Saturday but also you have a bit of pride and I had pride and didn’t want to lose the game today. I wanted to win it and if it meant me putting players out … for me the most important game is always the next one, try and win the next game, that’s the way but I tried to give some people opportunities to show what they can do as well and the more we showed was with the injuries we have got we are lacking in depth, in some areas we are short.

Bid for Matt Cash? West Ham bid £12m when Milan already had £15m rejected?

Can you confirm there was a £15m offer from Milan? Or was it just speculation. In my understanding we did not make a £12m bid for Matty Cash. I think we have made some enquiries but as far as I know we did not make any offer whatsoever.

Have to be decisive in the market this week?

I don’t think you can draw that one as being decisive or indecisive. I don’t know who is saying we made the offer. I think a lot of people are saying we make offers but I genuinely don’t think we did make an offer for Matt Cash. He’s a good player, mind you.

Need to be decisive in market?

Sometimes I feel the pressure that comes from outside to bring players in that makes you feel like you should do it for the sake of it. But actully my stance is to say we can only bring players in who we think are going to make a difference. I don’t want to bring players in who aren’t going to make an impact on the team because it’s wasting the money. It adds to things which you may already have. So I’m desperately trying to get people in who we think can do something for the team and that’s not easy. As well as that it’s not that easy.

Not got a big backroom team?

We don’t and we’re hoping to add to that. Behind the scenes we’ve been having informal conversations with people. One or two have not quite fallen into place.

Makes it harder?

"It would be better to have a team in place but we have met one or two who we’ve had our eye on and for different reasons we haven’t quite been able to get them."

Ajeti any use?

"I think we would have been hoping he’d have given us a little bit more in different aspects but I don’t want to judge somebody on one sole effort. But he’s been here for how long now, since the summer, and I don’t know how many games he’s started. Today I felt it was fair to give him an opportunity, to see if there was something there and it was right for us, and we’ll assess it. We’ll have a look again."