'31 shots' - West Ham boss Julen Lopetegui responds to questions over future with player backing claim

West Ham United manager Julen Lopetegui insists his players want to win “for me and the club” after his side slumped to a 3-1 loss at Leicester City on Wednesday night.

The defeat was a seventh in 14 games for the Irons and just a third victory of the campaign for the Foxes. Jamie Vardy opened the scoring after two minutes before Bilal El Khannouss doubled the hosts’ lead just past the hour mark. Patson Daka made it 3-0 on 90 minutes before summer signing Niclas Fullkrug scored a consolation for West Ham in the third minute of stoppage time,

The visitors had 31 shots, 10 of which were on target, compared to just eight shots from Leicester - six of which were on target. West Ham also had 61 per cent of possession and had an xG (expected goals) of 3.09 compared to just 1.35 for Leicester. Lopetegui believes that more wins will come if his side continue to create chances in the manner they did at the King Power Stadium.

“Reflection today is not easy, because I think that we deserved much more,” he said afterwards. “We had 31 shots on the opposite goal, many, many chances. The first goal of them has been key. We have to do better than this. We have to avoid this start of the match, because after this goal they believed more. Normally if you create even fewer chances, you are going to win. We didn’t do it, so we are very frustrated. The players didn’t deserve this.”

Asked if he felt his position was under threat, Lopetegui said: “The only thing I’m worried about now is to go to the training session tomorrow and to prepare the players for the next challenge. I understand your question. We have a lot of matches. I am sure with this attitude we are going to be able to achieve many more points. We are very frustrated. At the end of the season, maybe we will be talking another way. There are a lot of matches in front of us, a lot of points. I believe in these players, I believe in the team, and I believe the second half of the season is going to be much better.”

On TV, he had said: “The [players] want to win for them, for me, for the club. This is about football, about winning. I told the players that we deserved much more if you are able to create this number of chances. For me each match is very important and the next match is going to be the most important. We have to be focused and do a good performance to win the match."

The Hammers are six points clear of the bottom three ahead of Wednesday night’s Premier League fixtures. They were beaten 5-2 by Arsenal on Saturday and have conceded 27 goals. At this stage, only Wolves and Leicester have conceded more.