West Ham boss Olli Harder blasted his side for being “awful” despite rescuing a late point away at Tottenham.
Kate Longhurst’s header in virtually the last play of the game cancelled out Rosella Ayane’s 54th-minute penalty and prevented the hosts from going second in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League.
Two minutes after going behind the Hammers were reduced to ten as Hawa Cissoko, who had escaped a second booking for fouling Jiali Tang in the box, was given her marching orders for booting the ball away in frustration but it was the visitors who rallied late.
Harder said: “This was our first game back after four weeks and it showed - we were awful.
“What I can take away is the character and the players’ resilience to stay in the game, to work hard and to represent the badge.
“From that aspect it’s very pleasing but in regards to performance, it’s nowhere near where it needs to be.”
The sides went in goalless at the break but Harder reckons his team easily could have gone into the interval in front after a productive 15 minutes to finish the half.
He added: “I thought the last 15 minutes of the first-half we piled pressure on Tottenham and probably with a bit more quality could have taken the lead.
“We probably could have created more meaningful chances in the first half than they did.”
But any momentum the Hammers, who stay eighth in the Barclays FAWSL, had created was lost when Cissoko’s clumsy challenge sent Tang crashing to the floor in the area and allowed Ayane to open the scoring.
Harder was disappointed in his player and his side’s defending but had no complaints with referee Amy Fearn’s decision with replays showing Cissoko got none of the ball.
He said: “It was difficult to say as I’ve only seen it once but it was called a penalty and it looked rash.
“It was so disappointing to give away the penalty in the manner we did and there were some aspects of our defending that we could have done better before Hawa Cissoko’s challenge, but the referee deemed it as a penalty and we couldn’t argue.”
Cissoko went on to get herself sent off and Harder praised his side’s resilience as they somehow managed to secure something from the game.
He explained: “The sending off changed the complexion of the game and from that point on it was Tottenham that had most of the ball as we were a player down.
“We just needed to be resilient to stay in the game which we did. Although we didn’t play really well today, we are finding ways to get points from football matches.”
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