West Ham manager David Moyes admits his side were 'not ready for the season' following 2-0 defeat to Brighton

The Hammers lost 2-0 at the London Stadium yesterday (August 21) – with goals from Alexis Mac Allister and Leandro Trossard leaving the East London outfit without a win or goal from their first three games of the season.

Moyes said: “I’m not quite sure we are ready yet, we haven't got everything in place and there is a little bit of a change coming.

"We’ve had two and half years where we stayed up, then got sixth and then seventh. We’ve tried to get into a position where we can challenge that again and that has been difficult. Hopefully, our quality will show though in the coming weeks.

"Ultimately, we started the season out three weeks ago and I have to take responsibility for us not being ready.”

Following their seventh place finish and Europa League semi final appearance last season, West Ham spent more than £110 million in this summer’s transfer window.

However, £32.5 million striker Gianluca Scamacca is yet to score a league goal, £31 million defender Nayef Aguerd has been injured since pre season and former PSG defender Thilo Kehrer gave away a penalty on Sunday while making his debut for the club.

Moyes explained: “I think it’s how quickly the players integrate into the new league and the training.

"If the players don’t adapt quickly we have to keep with the players that we had. We could do with freshening some things up.

"At the moment we are seeing flashes of it from the new players but no whole-hearted things where we can say they are ready to start.

"We were one of the top goal scorers last season. We didn't score many goals in pre season this year and we’ve been struggling a bit for the goals and if it wasn't for Jarred Bowen’s goals in the second half of last season we would have dried up as well.

“We are well aware we have not been as free scoring as we once were, but I can’t just put that down to any of the goal scorers, because you can’t be saying they’ve been getting any great crosses into the box or slick passes in.

Kehrer, 25, signed for United on a four-year contract with the option of an additional two years, in a transfer costing the club £10.1 million.

With yesterday’s game at 0-0, the German international made a rash slide tackle on Danny Welbeck in the box, ending with Brighton taking the lead from the penalty spot.

When asked about Kehrer’s performance, Moyes said: “He played quite well, but made the wrong decision to go to the ground for the penalty kick. We gave the ball away terribly, but if he had stayed on his feet he probably would have seen it out.

“I think the penalty makes a big dent in the game and if anything we restricted them to a lot of long balls. The problem was when we were picking it back up, we were giving it straight back to them."

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Despite the poor start to the season, the Hammers boss believes there is no reason for the club to panic just yet.

Moyes said: “I think alarm bells are a bit too strong, we finished sixth and seventh in the last two seasons and took the positives from that.

To be fair, before that the club had been around these positions for a long time. So, we need to get away from that position again and I think we have a different type of team, but we just lost a wee bit.

"Losing Mark Noble has been massive on us, so these things can make a big difference sometimes.”