Mauricio Pochettino attached no blame to keeper Artur Boruc for West Ham’s equalising goal yesterday.

Boruc was beaten in the second half by an Andy Carroll effort that took a slight deflection off Steven Davis on the way through.

There were suggestions that the Polish stopper had not reacted quickly enough, but his manager refuted any such claims.

“No, I think we were just unlucky because the ball went through Davis’ legs and actually touched a little bit of one of his legs and the ball swerved,” he said.

“Adding to that how wet the pitch was, it was really hard to control that ball in that moment.”

Pochettino praised the efforts of all his players, as they turned in another strong performance – even if they didn’t quite hit the spectacular heights they have done at times in the past few weeks.

“It was hard to enjoy that game. It was soaking wet. But I’m happy and I congratulated my players,” he said.

“They did quite well in conditions that actually favoured their (West Ham’s) style of play.

“We played the game as we wanted and we imposed our brand of football.

“We defended well and were able to nullify their style of play. We cancelled them out basically, and it’s just a shame about the result, because my players’ performance was really good.”

Saints’ focus now turns to next Saturday’s visit to Swansea, with both teams playing some of the most attractive football in the Premier League.

The match will also see two men with strong associations to Spain’s La Liga meet, as former Espanyol player and manager Pochettino comes up against ex-Barcelona and Real Madrid ace Michael Laudrup, who also coached Getafe and Mallorca.

“I’m very pleased and excited about meeting him and about playing against them, because they promote a style of football that’s very similar to ours. Hopefully we’ll see a good spectacle in the football,” said Pochettino.