Reserves Draw

A young West Ham reserve side earned a 0-0 draw with Chelsea on Monday night - to the delight of Roger Cross.

In the end, Ian Pearce was not involved, thus reducing the average age of a young side still further.

And Roger was pleased with how his young charges performed.

"It was a good performance against a Chelsea team including Bogarde and Terry, and I think we edged the play overall.

"But the most important thing is that it was a sound defensive performance and we restricted them to just two shots.

"A clean sheet means everything really, as it guarantees you some sort of result.

"In the second half, when Terry Khan was on, with Izzie Iriekpen at centre half and Shaun Byrne moving to full back, it was an extremely young back four.

"Raimond made one very good save and, as usual, was a very positive influence on the team - he is such an experienced player and it rubs off on all his colleagues."

Of some of the other performances, Roger adds: "Youssef Sofiane has had one or two injuries and hasn't really got started yet - but he will get better.

"Laurent Courtois did very well as well."

Vladimir Labant, who was not selected for the Slovakia squad to face England, could not even complete 90 minutes with the reserves, and Roger explains: "He was sick at half time and had to come off - and Billy Mehmet had a head-on collision with one of their players so he didn't make the full game either."

Team: Van der Gouw, McMahon, Labant (Khan 46), Byrne, Iriekpen, Ward, Britton, Rahim, Sofiane, Mehmet (Allen 80), Courtois. Subs unused: Forde, Eastwood.