West Ham captain Declan Rice urged calm after defeat at home to Brentford on Friday night.

The 2-0 reverse was West Ham's five consecutive league defeat.

Rice later said: "As bizarre as it sounds with the result, the first half is as good as we have played this season. We passed really well, we just lacked cutting edge. They scored two goals, we couldn't put the ball in the back of the net.

"It's really frustrating, we highlighted throw-ins as a strength of theirs. Their second one, one throw, one ball over top and it's in net. In all my time at West Ham, we haven't conceded a goal as easy as that.

"Inside the changing room heads were not down at all. We just couldn't get that extra goal. In games this you need to score, keep applying pressure, and credit to Brentford they stopped us.

"This is West Ham, it's a massive club. Where we are in the table isn't good enough, we need to be doing better, we are letting ourselves down, our manager down and our fans down. It doesn't feel real being in the position we are but that's the reality.

"When you're down at the bottom with the games played, people will say it's a relegation battle. But if you have that mindset, it makes everything frantic. It's not like that at all, everything is so positive. We've got to stay positive."