West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic has admitted that he is "angry and frustrated" at his side following their exit from the Europa League this evening.
The Hammers went into their second leg against Astra Giurgiu with a slight advantage having scored an away goal in the first-leg 1-1 draw, but Filipe Teixeira scored the only goal at the London Stadium to send the Romanian outfit through.
It is the second time in as many years that West Ham have been beaten by Astra in the playoff stage of Europa League qualifying, and Bilic admitted that his side did not deserve anything else.
"It's very frustrating. I would like to congratulate Astra as they deserved it. I told the guys before this was one of our most important games of the year because this was a final we needed to win. The disappointment is massive. We didn't play good in the first half or with desire as a team. We were second best," he told reporters.
"If you give their players time to turn and play, they can pass and move the ball. They took their chance on the counter-attack. We lost a goal after we turned the ball over in a very strange way. We had time after the goal to turn it around. I thought I need to change one or two players or the system but it wasn't about that, it was about the way we played.
"We created the sort of chances we had to score, but it wasn't that we missed chances, it was that we didn't play good. I'm angry and frustrated but I'm much more disappointed than anything else because we wanted to go through to the Europa League. I am not going to lose faith in the players after one game, but we are missing some our top quality players."
The Hammers will now turn their attention to an away match against Premier League leaders Manchester City on Sunday.
Barney Corkhill
