Mark Robson admitted West Ham United U21s’ 2-0 win against Leicester City was all about getting a crucial three points on the board.
George Earthy and Divin Mubama struck in the first-half for the Irons at Rush Green Stadium on Friday to secure the victory over the already relegated Foxes, giving the Hammers a good chance of avoiding the drop themselves from Premier League 2 Division 1.
In fairness, the win was highly merited with the hosts dominating most of the play, creating numerous chances and limiting their opponents to fleeting opportunities; ones which goalkeeper Krisztián Hegyi comfortably dealt with when they sporadically occurred.
The result puts the Hammers eleventh in the 14-team league, three points above next week’s opponents, Tottenham Hotspur, and ahead of Wolverhampton Wanderers on goal difference.
Lead coach Robson was delighted his side was able to claim such a crucial victory, while also offering praise for the young Hammers who featured in his side just 72 hours after winning the FA Youth Cup in the U18s…
At the start of the game, we said to the lads that it was about winning in this match.
We needed to win to give ourselves a good chance of staying up going into the last week. The boys have to show they know how to win games. They did that tonight. That was our thing for this game; making sure we got these important three points.
We know it’s not all done and dusted but it puts us in a hopefully good position going into our final game.
I thought we were really good in the first half.
We were really disciplined around the things we did and we deservedly went ahead. I thought we were the better team in the first half.
In the second half, we perhaps were a bit more direct and could have controlled the game a bit better than we did. Leicester did that a bit more in the second half, but we were two goals up and it would have been nice to get more goals.
We had some chances in the second half and we could have really put the game to bed. Goal difference can make a big difference but, overall, it was about getting three points and I’m pleased we did that.
We had four starters in this game who played in Tuesday’s FA Youth Cup win for the U18s, and they all did fantastic.
To just get through the game was immense. Kaelan Casey played the whole game for us and George Earthy played close to 70 minutes, and he didn’t stop running for us.
We were also able to bring on a couple of the younger ones as well, which has been a theme for our season. We’ve got some real talented youngsters and it’s a joy to watch them play, and to see them come into the U21s and hold their own.
We struggled a bit physically at the start of the season but you can see we’ve found our way in the last few weeks and months.
Ultimately, we’re still trying to improve these lads as players. But, to be fair, we wouldn’t have pushed them up into the U21s if we didn’t think they would be capable of competing and holding their own.
Technically, they are very capable, but the physicality was the thing we knew would take some time. But they’ve learned to deal with it now and it’s really good to see them doing well at this level.
The U18s are a fantastic group of players and they have a really strong comradery amongst them.
That’s coming across to the U21s when they’re with us. I certainly notice it when they’re here with us and they’re so great when they are with us. They add an energy to us that is a joy to see. The character there is superb.
We’ve got one more game to go.
We need to edge ourselves over that line and here’s hoping we can do that against Tottenham. I said the lads have good character and we need to push that to the limit in one more game. We’re going to need real character to make sure we stay above Tottenham and get what we need from the game.
Ultimately, we want to stay in this division and hopefully we can do that. I think this result against Leicester takes us some way to doing that but we know it’s going to be a tough game against Tottenham next week, that’s for sure.
