West Ham fight back to draw with Bournemouth after Phillips debut blunder

West Ham fight back to draw with Bournemouth after Phillips debut blunder

Sports

David Moyes said Phillips was fine after the match and attributed the error to a lack of game time

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LONDON (Reuters) - West Ham United debutant Kalvin Phillips gifted Bournemouth an early goal before the Hammers fought back to earn a 1-1 Premier League draw at the London Stadium on Thursday.

England midfielder Phillips, on loan from Manchester City, underhit an attempted backpass inside three minutes to give Dominic Solanke a tap-in for his 13th goal of the campaign.

West Ham manager David Moyes said Phillips was fine after the match and attributed the error to a lack of game time.

"As the game went on tonight, he was starting to get a bit better, starting to find his feet a little bit more, I thought he was just slow at the start of the game," Moyes told reporters.

West Ham could have been two down but for a strong hand by Alphonse Areola to deny Antoine Semenyo, before Tomas Soucek spurned a good chance and headed over just before the break.

The hosts improved in the second half and equalised after 61 minutes through a James Ward-Prowse penalty, eventually awarded by VAR for Lloyd Kelly's foul on Mohammed Kudus.

Phillips was replaced by striker Danny Ings as West Ham pushed for a win and created half-chances, though Bournemouth constantly carried a threat on the break.

The sides had to settle for a point each, however, and Bournemouth manager Adoni Iraola was happy enough.

"There's a part where you have to value the point because we know it's not easy to come to this stadium and get a result, but it's true that, I think, if any of the teams deserved to win today it was Bournemouth," he said.

Moyes also declared himself content with the result. "I'm happy with a point, I'm not happy with the performance generally," he said. West Ham remained sixth in the table on 36 points and Bournemouth moved up to 12th place on 26.