Pel admits: My players’ mistake was believing we’d won before kick-off

more too, and boss Pellegrini took heart from the way his team responded after the break.

But he admitted: “The players made the mistake of thinking they had won the game before they had played.

“We played very badly in the first 45 minutes. When Huddersfield scored their goal it all started to go wrong.

“We changed it at halftime. It was not difficult to tell the players what they needed to do.

“A draw was a fair result, but we did have two or three chances to win.”

Huddersfield’s last top-flight victory over West Ham came in 1971.

“We are frustrated because we deserved to win for that first-half performance,” said Terriers boss David Wagner. “We had everything apart from some good luck.”

Both teams could have scored during the opening exchanges.

Aaron Mooy’s shot was beaten behind by Lukasz Fabianski. And when Steve Mounie met Mooy’s corner with a meaty header, Fabianski diverted the ball onto the crossbar.

Moments later, Grady Diagana’s pass sent Marko Arnautovic clear at the other end, but the Austrian telegraphed his intentions and Jonas Lossl plunged to save.

When Huddersfield went ahead in the sixth minute it was a memorable moment in more ways