Mark Robson has probably never been content with a 1-0 defeat.
But while West Ham United U21s fell to a season finale defeat to London rivals Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, the nature of the loss – by one, single finish, netted eight minutes by Jamie Donley – means the Irons remained in Premier League 2 Division 1 on goal difference.
Despite being the victors on the day, Spurs suffered relegation after a 13th place finish in the 14-team league, and lead coach Robson was full of praise for his team’s tenacity and resilience on what could have potentially been a tricky afternoon for the young Hammers.
While no team is ever happy to lose a match, Robson knew today’s game was all about remaining in the division and, speaking after the final whistle, the lead coach was delighted with the heart shown by his very young side throughout the campaign.
It leaves Robson even more excited for what’s to come in 2023/24.
We got what we needed out of the afternoon.
For us, it was about not conceding too many goals and staying in the game and then, when we found our moments, could we hurt Tottenham? We didn’t quite do that bit, despite having some really good opportunities, but we could have put the game to bed if we’d taken one of them.
I have to say, overall, on today’s effort, the boys were really together, stuck at it and it was a really solid, defensive performance.
We limited Tottenham to few chances and we deserved to come out as the team that remained in Division 1.
It was obviously between us and Tottenham, and today they’ve had two first team players in their side; one who went to the World Cup and another who has been a consistent player in the Premier League for a number of years, and we’ve gone out with our 17 and 18-year-olds and played well.
It's a shame the league went down to today.
If we’re honest, we could have wrapped up our place in Division 1 a couple of weeks ago at Crystal Palace. We were 3-1 up and didn’t hold onto it, but we learned from that day and I think the lads really picked up on the things that needed improving out of that match.
I’m so pleased for all the boys and pleased for all my staff too, because they’ve been brilliant this year too, and as a group we deserved to stay up.
Going back to the start of the season, some of our lads were 16 then.
We were playing well but not quite getting results, but some of our boys were struggling a little bit physically. Not necessarily just competitively, but also in the tiny details such as in front of goal. As the season has gone on, we’ve improved.
The lads have done great work in the gym with our sports science team, with people like Ben Male, and that work came to fruition for us around Christmas.
We started to feel like we were getting stronger as a team and today, it was like young men were playing out there. They competed fantastically well and it was a gritty performance.
I’m already excited to see what these boys can do next season.
The key now is we’ve got a young group of players who, along with the work done by Kevin Keen and the U18s coaches, have really been outstanding. We want to make sure we keep that going and that’s going to be the positive for next season.
We want these boys to not only do well in the U21s but are also given the opportunities to develop into first team players at West Ham. We’ve got some very good, young players here and we’re confident that those opportunities are going to come for them because you can’t keep good players down.
