West Ham United boss frustrated by defeat at Aston Villa

Douglas Luiz’s double and clinical finishes from Ollie Watkins and Leon Bailey ended Villa’s Hammers hoodoo, for their first victory over the east Londoners since 2015.

Jarrod Bowen replied for the visitors, as they suffered just their third defeat of the Premier League season and were left in ninth place.

And Moyes said: “I’m not having my teams losing four goals as soft as we did today. 

“There were things which I can say we did quite well but I didn’t think we were hard enough to play against.

“Today wasn’t so good. More importantly nearly every ball we played around the box was the wrong decision and it led to us hardly creating enough opportunity to score.

“The lads kept on fighting and it looked like we were the team in ascendancy at 2-1 but they punished us really quickly and that took the game beyond our reach.

“Villa are probably just behind the top three or four in the Premier League and today was a challenge to see what level we were at and I thought we fell below that.

“It was a very close first half, we missed opportunities to score. We had opportunities to make chances to score and that was the bit bugging me at half-time.”

Luiz had already tested Alphonse Areola from distance before opening the scoring after half an hour, firing in from the edge of the box after good work by Nicolo Zaniolo and Watkins.

Six minutes after the break Villa were gifted a second when Lucas Paqueta sold Edson Alvarez short and he brought down Ezri Konsa for Luiz to convert from the spot.

But Bowen grabbed a lifeline for the Hammers soon after when his shot hit Pau Torres to creep into the corner.

The visitors sensed a recovery, with Matty Cash heading over Nayef Aguerd’s shot, but with 16 minutes left Watkins ended any ideas of a comeback as he latched onto John McGinn’s long ball, skipped past Kurt Zouma and lashed into the roof of the net.

There was still time for Bailey to get in on the act in the final minute, beating Areola from six yards after giving Aguerd the slip.

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery played down his side’s Champions League credentials after victory left them just two points off Premier League pacesetters Manchester City and Arsenal in fifth.

“There are seven teams contending. We are after seven teams; Man City, Man United, Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea and Newcastle,” said Emery.

“Dream, always. My dream is to win the Champions League but now we are fifth and we are going to face each match trying to get a good performance.

“It’s 38 matches and we lost at Newcastle, we lost at Liverpool. They are matches we are not going to play again.

“I prefer to speak about the matches we won but I have to speak about the matches we lost. This is the balance. We have to be very demanding.

“In the table West Ham were two points behind us and the level we have now, they have as well. It was very important.

“The process is going in the right way, it’s going to be difficult. In the end we won 4-1.”

*copy from Press Association.