David Moyes has said he will show faith in Sebastien Haller while the Frenchman replaces the injured Michail Antonio but the West Ham manager also had some pointed words towards the frontman.
The club-record signing made his first Premier League start of the season as West Ham were beaten 2-1 by Liverpool at Anfield on Saturday evening as a late Diogo Jota winner secured all three points for Jurgen Klopp's side.
But it wasn't a good night for Haller as he barely had a sniff on goal, struggled to hold the ball up and had nowhere near the impact Antonio has been having since lockdown. It's a tough comparison as the two are completely different players but Haller's struggles all round at Anfield will be of huge concern.
Haller was eventually replaced by Andriy Yarmolenko with 15 minutes to go after an ineffective display and Moyes was aksed post-match how he feels about Haller leading the line with Antonio out.
Moyes said: "I think Sebastien has got to be self-motivated to get his level of performance up so he can get goals and score.
"We will show faith in him and we want him to come back and get us the goals and performances to go with it.
"It was always going to be a hard game tonight for anybody playing against Liverpool it would have been if it was Micky Antonio or anyone else.
"We want Seb to get goals he has done in the past and we will give him the opportunity but, obviously, his performance levels need to be good."
Antonio was in the stands watching on after picking up a hamstring injury in the 1-1 draw with Manchester City last weekend. He saw his teammates take the lead on Merseyside after Pablo Fornals had swept the visitors into a tenth minute lead, only for it to be cancelled out by Mo Salah's equalising penalty five minutes before the break.
Subsititute Jota had a goal chalked off by VAR for a foul by Sadio Mane on Angelo Ogbonna but the Portuguese forward wasn't to be denied a second time as he latched on to Xherdan Shaqiri's pass to fire past Lukasz Fabianski to seal all three points for Jurgen Klopp's side.
