Sam Allardyce admitted to feeling immense frustration after watching his West Ham United do everything but beat Queens Park Rangers on Saturday.
The Hammers completely dominated the game at a freezing cold Boleyn Ground, but were unable to break through the ice that was the massed ranks of the QPR defence.
The Hoops were outplayed in all departments, but were able to snatch a 1-1 draw by virtue of taking a shock 14th-minute lead through new signing Loic Remy, who beat the offside trap before sliding his low shot past Jussi Jaaskelainen.
From then on, a few counter-attacks aside, it was all West Ham. Big Sam's side launched 46 crosses into the QPR penalty area and unleashed 22 shots, many of which were saved by inspired goalkeeper Julio Cesar or blocked by his defenders.
West Ham finally found a way through the Rangers rearguard on 68 minutes, when yet another Matt Jarvis cross was headed on goal by substitute Carlton Cole. Cesar parried and Joe Cole tapped in the rebound - to the immense relief of the vast majority of the shivering capacity crowd.
Afterwards, Big Sam told West Ham TV he could not believe his side had not collected all three points.
"It's not just the stats, but if you had watched the game with the naked eye, whether you are a West Ham fan, a manager or a coach, you would have watched the game and said 'Wow! What a performance and what a complete domination of the opposition'. But unfortunately, however brilliant your stats are against the opposition's stats, the bottom line stat reads 'West Ham 1 QPR 1' and that's the most important one.
"In the end, I am as frustrated as anybody else that we didn't record a very comfortable victory. Because it hasn't brough that comfortable victory, it's a big disappointment for us all and we're all massively frustrated and, may I say, none more so than the players. You hear all this stuff about players getting this or that much money and it not meaning that much to them, but it's the biggest load of rubbish.
"Over the last five or six years, I have seen players give their all week in and week out. If they are not quite up to the level you are playing at, then that's fine. It's not about the fact they don't try because they do. They are dejected like everybody else.
"We just have to take the massive positives out of this game, which is over-running a team and the only thing we didn't over-run them by was a victory that should have, in  my assessment, about 4-1. We had ten shots on target, ten or more off-target and 46 crosses - it just never stopped - but only one goal, which I have to say isn't good enough. We must be as dominant as that but we must come off with a victory at the end of it and not come off disappointed like we have against QPR."
Big Sam was also disappointed by the nature of Remy's goal, with the France international being allowed to spring the offside trap to race in on goal and finish with relative ease.
"I am disappointed because I coached it in the week and I spoke to the players about it on Friday. I warned them on Saturday when we knew Remy would play his first game up front. I said there would long times when we're attacking the opposition so you can't get caught watching the ball instead of where your man is, because when they break with someone like Taarabt who can play a good ball, we just blew it.
"Winston Reid and James Tomkins just did exactly what I told them not to do - switched off, got caught watching the ball and got too tight to Remy and tried to play an offside that was never going to work. In the end, the lad tucked it away well and left us one behind."
The manager was, however, happier with his players' reaction in continuing to take the game to the visitors, despite that early setback.
"We knew we didn't deserve it but it happens and we knew we had to fight back from that. Particularly in the second half, from a footbal point of view, there couldn't have been any more action in the box. Sadly, ultimately we should have put the ball in the net more often than we did."
When West Ham did score, it was no surprise that it was the impressive Joe Cole who was the man to get his name on the sheet, but it was just a shame neither he nor his colleagues could fashion a late winner.
"In the end, we got the goal and I thought we had plenty of time to go on and win it, but unfortunately we didn't get the winner. I have to say there was a huge element of bad luck in what happened to us in that the ball didn't bounce for us or it has beaten the defender and hit the defender when he didn't know much about it.
"There was one stage when we had four or five shots at once and they didn't go in. We could have still been doing that at 7pm and not scored again.
"At the end, we got a point. Alright, it's not what we deserved but we've just got to move on and keep positive and try to keep recreating those performances, especially at Upton Park."
One player who also impressed was full debutant Marouane Chamakh, who linked the play well and might have won a penalty and scored with two powerful downward headers on another day. When Chamakh tired, Carlton Cole replaced him and played a massive part in his namesake's equaliser.
"He has played well and linked the play and he grew into the game. He has got a huge lack of match practice so he fatigued. So we brought on Coley and he has helped us come from behind to get on level terms with a really dangerous header that Cesar has pushed to Joe, who's tapped it in.
"I thought that was going to trigger us to go on and get the victory but it didn't. Apart from poor finishing, everyone played an excellent game."