David Moyes gives brutal assessment of West Ham’s ‘atrocious’ defending in Arsenal thumping

David Moyes has condemned West Ham's defending against Arsenal, labeling it as 'atrocious'.

The Hammers endured a torrid afternoon against the Gunners in which they fell to a 6-0 hammering at the hands of Mikel Arteta's side.

Four goals before half-time put the game firmly to bed for Arsenal, before Declan Rice's stunning strike against his former club confirmed West Ham's misery.

While the Hammers still sit in the Premier League's top eight, Moyes did not hold back after the game when analysing his side's defending.

Speaking to talkSPORT, Moyes said: “We’ve been sixth recently for a while but the competition is really tough.

“Isn’t it great that over the last couple of years we’ve had a year where we finish sixth, a year where we finished seventh? Last year wasn’t so good but we’ve been back up in sixth again.

“It’s shown that there’s a level of some sort of consistency but I can’t remember many of my West Ham teams playing as poorly defensively as we did today."

Asked if it was the nature of their defending that disappointed him most, Moyes said: “Yeah. All of those things were atrocious from our point of view and just not enough fight, no commitment in some of the actions.

“We needed to be stronger in set pieces and you don’t turn your back on when he’s about to shoot – all of those actions are the sort of things you get brought up with from being a young player.

“Today we acted not in a good way with those opportunities where we should have defended much better.”

Asked if the players are hurting as much as the fans, he added: “I do. I think that they know.

“We’ve probably got as good a squad as we’ve had here, but all the other teams we’ve had would never let themselves be beaten the way they were today, so everybody has to pick themselves up including the staff, we have to do it as well and get ready for what’s next.”