West Ham United boss David Moyes was left to curse his side's luck after they slipped to defeat at Nottingham Forest.

Taiwo Awoniyi ensured a winning homecoming as Forest hosted their first Premier League game in 23 years when bundling home from close range late in the first half.

And it came moments after the Hammers had seen a Said Benrahma goal ruled out by VAR, with Michail Antonio adjudged to have fouled a home defender in the build-up.

Pablo Fornals and Benrahma both hit the underside of the crossbar in the second half, while Declan Rice saw a penalty saved by Dean Henderson and Tomas Soucek had an effort cleared off the line.

And that left the Hammers to contemplate a second successive defeat at the start of the new campaign, following their 2-0 home reverse against defending champions Manchester City a week earlier.

Moyes said: "I'm really frustrated. We haven't scored many in pre-season that was an excerpt of it.

"The first 20 minutes frustrated me, I thought we were really poor. We grew into the game. We didn't deserve the result we got, that was for sure, but we did in the end.

"Forest started well, they were powerful, strong and put us under pressure. We didn't cope with that well.

"Maybe on another day. We hit the underside of the crossbar twice, we missed a penalty, we got a goal disallowed which was a bit contentious.

"Very little went our way in what was a big game for Nottingham Forest. They carried quite a bit of luck and we didn't have any."

The City Ground had not hosted a top-flight game since 1999 and Awoniyi became the first Forest player to score a Premier League goal since Chris Bart-Williams.

Home boss Steve Cooper was aware of the importance of the occasion, adding: "There were two things today, the occasion, the event of the first home game back in the Premier League, so important to so many people and we were never going to treat it as a normal game, it was more than that.

"You could sense since we got promoted everyone was waiting for the first home game.

"We knew it was a very important day. We spoke about three generations of Forest supporters here today, one who remember the really good old days, a new generation who will be watching their first Premier League game and the ones in between. We had to represent all three of those.

"First half I thought we were much the better team, we really took the game to West Ham.

"In terms of the game, I was so happy with our attitude and confidence going into the first half, the atmosphere was amazing anyway but that raised it even more.

"We played really well in the first half and maybe we should have created more. We deserved to win the game today and it was important we did."