Slaven Bilic was left struggling to find any positives from his West Ham United side’s display after their 5-0 FA Cup third round defeat to Manchester City.

The Hammers were second best throughout the clash at London Stadium as goals from Yaya Toure, David Silva, Sergio Aguero and John Stones added to Havard Nordtveit’s own-goal to condemn them to defeat.

Having previously stated his desire to go far in the competition, Bilic was left searching for plus points from an abject home display.

His side were competitive until going behind in the 33rd minute but Bilic also questioned their reaction to City’s opener.

“It is a very bad result for us. It is a big defeat and it is hard to say anything positive when the game finishes like this,” he explained.

“The crucial moment, apart from the penalty was our reaction after the first goal. We had a great chance to equalise but then we made the mistake that we started to chase them.

“If you attack them on a big pitch they will find the space in between the lines. That is what they have done in the 10 minutes before the end of the first half and the game is over.”

Bilic opted to omit a number of first team regulars from his starting XI, with both talismanic midfielder Dimitri Payet and captain Mark Noble starting on the bench.

The West Ham boss confirmed Noble had been struggling with illness during the week and said Payet’s absence came as he attempted to keep his squad fresh.

Regardless of selection, Bilic insisted the team he picked had the quality to get a positive result.

“This was our third game in six days and we wanted to put a very strong line up out and we did,” he said.

“Mark was ill for a couple of days, but with this team we thought we had a really good chance to give them a game and could go through to the next round.

“We had a plan to add some quality from the bench, but unfortunately it didn’t work out.”