Billy Bates says that West Ham United U18s failed to hit their best in Saturday's 3-1 defeat at the hands of Chelsea.
The Irons suffered only their second league defeat of the season in a hard fought encounter at Little Heath against the Blues at the weekend, with the away side taking the lead inside ten minutes as Donnell McNeilly headed home.
Callum Marshall‘s strike pulled the Hammers level midway through the first half, but second half efforts from McNeilly and Tudor Mendel-Idowu secured the three points for Chelsea.
Bates recognised that the performance from the U18s was far from the brilliant best that has seen West Ham pull away at the top of the U18 Premier League South table.
“It’s a tough one to take,” Bates told whufc.com. “It’s been a great season so far and we were on a superb winning run until the Southampton game a couple of weeks ago.
“We obviously lost against Southampton in our last league match and we were determined to put things right against Chelsea. We wanted to bounce back with a win and a good performance but unfortunately we were unable to do that. It just wasn’t our day.”
The Hammers improved drastically during the first half after a difficult opening ten minutes which saw the visitors take the lead.
Bates pointed out that the side’s poor start was instrumental in their defeat.
“It was frustrating to concede the early goal,” he continued. “It was something that we had discussed before the match. We wanted to be solid during the opening stages. We wanted to keep a clean sheet in the opening 20 minutes and then go from there.
“Obviously we conceded an early goal and that changed the course of the game. We gave ourselves a lot to do from that moment against a good opposition.”
Despite a disappointing start to the match, the 18-year-old defender was pleased with the side’s response after falling behind.
“As soon as we found an equaliser we started to play with a lot more belief. We played well at the end of the first half and then again at the start of the second half. We really believed that we could go on to win the match.
“We went into the second half full of positivity but unfortunately they were able to take their chances and we didn’t. Things didn’t quite click for us, it’s a game to put behind us because it really wasn’t our day out there.”
Despite defeat, the young Irons are still thirteen points clear at the top of the U18 Premier League South table, having won twelve of their opening fourteen matches.
Bates is now determined to help the young Hammers bounce back next week as Kevin Keen’s side face Norwich City in the U18 Premier League South.
He reflected: “We have made an excellent start to this season but we’ve lost our last two league matches. That’s something that we want to put right next week. We’ll get back out on the training pitch, we’ll work hard and we’ll look to correct ourselves.
“We’re top of the league and every team that plays against us has an extra incentive to beat us. That’s a challenge that we embrace and we know that we have to be ready for every single match.”
