West Ham boss Graham Potter felt his side deserved even more from their 1-1 draw with Aston Villa, having come from behind to secure a point at Villa Park on Sunday. (More Football News)
Jacob Ramsey had given the hosts the lead wi🍬th a fine goal early on, but✱ the Hammers hit back through Emerson's brilliant header 20 minutes from time.
The visitors threatened to snatch a late winner, with Danny Ings firing narrowly wide before the influential Lucas Paqueta had a goa🌺l ruled out for offside in st🉐oppage time.
It was the first time a side managed by𓆏 Potter had avoided a defeat when conceding first in a Premier League game since October 2022 (Chelsea 2-1 Cry💞stal Palace).
Prior to Sunday's draw, the new West Ham 𝓀manager had lost each of his last nine matches when seeing his team concede the opener, and he w꧑as happy with their latest display.
"I think the performance maybe deserved more. We played well after the first 15 minutes," Potter told BBC&nb🐬sp;Match of the Day.
"We🌞 tried to win the ball back high. It's a reward forဣ the performance we got today.
"We wanted our wing-backs to be more aggressive with𓄧 their movement,ꦐ which they did. It's really pleasing overall that the squad looks ready to fight.
"This has been the first weekꦏ we've had as a training week. We have to keep going, we are at the start."
With injuries to Jarrod Bowen, Michail Antonio and Niclas Fullkrug, Potter used Paqueta a♏s a false nine against Villa, which proved to be an inspired alteration in the 💝contest.
The Brazilian was unable to get his name on the🌠 scoresheet, but impressed with his all-round game, winning a joint-team-high 11 duels (level with Mohammed൲ Kudus).
He also registered more shots (three) than any of his team-mates, while only Kudus and Tomas Soucek (ni🐻ne) had more touches in the opposition box than Paqueta (seven).
"He [Paqueta] was a real handful. 💃You can play into him becaus๊e he's so strong," Potter added. "I'm really pleased for him, it was a really good performance."
Villa lost 1.39-0.ღ79 in the expected goals (xG) statistics, having led on that metric at half-time, while the hosts also managed just six shots to West Ham's nine after the break.
Villa have now failed to win four of the 11 Premier League games they’ve scored first in this season (W7 D2 L2), more than they did i🧸n the 19 games they opened the🌱 scoring in last term (W16 D2 L1).
Unai Emery's side clearly flagged after their midweek Cha💦mpions League exploits and must recapture some ene🔯rgy ahead of Wednesday's crucial tie with Celtic.
"We started the second part of the season with two wins and two draws. We are v🧸ery ambitious, and we want more," Emery said of t꧒he result.
"We have to keep going and focus on Wednesday🤪, recover some players, and try to use the last week in the transfer window. We have to get our performances quality. We want to play in Europe.
"They were pushing and got into our box and scored one goal. We didn't feel strong or have the f🎶resh legs to recover or dominate or try to score. We have circumstances like the injury of Tyrone Mings, and we🍸 don't have another proper centre-back."
Emery provided an updaꦯte on Mings, w𝓡ho hobbled off with a worrying-looking knee injury on just his 11th appearance back after returning from a 14-month lay-off.
The Spaniard said: "I don't know. Tomorrow we will test him and hopef🐽ully it is not a lot. Things like that are punishing us♐."
