Manuel Pellegrini insists Newcastle United 'never had one chance' because of West Ham's high line after Jonjo Shelvey confirmed his side worked on exploiting it ahead of the 3-2 win at the London Stadium.
Shelvey revealed Steve Bruce had spoken about Pellegrini's high line in the team meeting ahead of the game and how the Hammers struggled with runners from deep.
While Allan Saint-Maximin and Miguel Almiron both spurned good opportunities to open their account for the Magpies on the counter-attack, Newcastle certainly made the most of free-kicks and corners against Pellegrini's side and all three goals game from set-piece situations.
West Ham have looked vulnerable at set-pieces - conceding goals against Oxford, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace from free-kicks and corners recently - and Newcastle assistants Steve Agnew and Stephen Clemence worked on a number of routines on the training ground.
Pellegrini was keen to point out that it was set-pieces that hurt his side when asked about Shelvey's comments ahead of the Hammers' trip to Burnley on Saturday.
"I don't talk about the opinion of other players. I think Newcastle scored three goals from set-pieces and they had two counter-attacks from our set-pieces. They never had one chance because we played high," he said.
"They had two chances in the counter-attack because we didn't keep a player back - that was a mistake because we always keep one or two players behind - but in that moment for a different reason we are not playing.
"In our set-pieces, they had one counter-attack, not playing during 95 minutes."
