Stuart Dallas makes admission over Leeds United's set-piece woes in West Ham defeat

Stuart Dallas has given an honest assessment of Leeds United's defensive woes, stating he and his team-mates must do better.

Marcelo Bielsa's side fell to a disappointing 2-1 defeat to West Ham in Premier League action on Friday night to make it back-to-back defeats.

An early Mateusz Klich penalty gave the hosts the advantage at Elland Road, following a VAR retake due to Hammers stopper Lukasz Fabianski stepping off his line as he saved the initial effort.

David Moyes' men, though, hit back as they levelled on the 25 minute mark through Tomas Soucek.

The visiting defender powered a header home from a Jarrod Bowen corner at the back-post, beating Dallas in the air with Illan Meslier unable to keep the effort out.

United's difficult night was made worse with just 10 minutes to go in LS11, as the Hammers found a winner from another set-piece.

This time Angelo Ogbonna converted an Aaron Cresswell free-kick, which was enough for the visitors to claim a deserved three points and take the spoils in West Yorkshire.

United's trend of struggling to defend set-pieces adequately continued much to Bielsa's frustration, and has been somewhat of a weak point since his arrival at the club nearly three years ago.

“It’s a tough one to take,” reflected post-match Dallas.

“We knew the threat they carried from set-plays and we’d worked hard on that all week coming into the game and that is how they’ve got their two goals.

“We’ve got to be better with how we defend it, we go man-for-man and you have to put a challenge in.

“If you can’t win it, you’ve got to make sure the player doesn’t make clean contact on it and unfortunately they’ve scored two from it tonight.

“They were a threat on the counter and we had quite a bit of possession again, but we just couldn’t turn it into a goal.”