TONY Carr admitted his young Hammers had needed a victory against
Millwall and the West Ham Uited Academy Director was delighted with
the way his side handled a tough encounter against Millwall.
He said: "Millwall never make it easy for you, so we knew it
was always going to be a difficult game.
"It's always a battle and we had to deal with that and try
to play our football as best we could, which I think we did.
"We scored two very good goals through David Cowley. The first
was a definite penalty and the second was a nice little chip, which
beat a goalkeeper who otherwise had an excellent game and kept them
in the match for long periods.
"At 1-0 the game is always in the balance, and it was like
that for quite a while. But our second goal killed the game and in
the end we could have had three or four."
In a fiercely competitive London derby at Millwall's training
ground, Tony was also pleased with the attitude shown by his
players in a game that could have turned nasty.
He added: "There were one or two nasty tackles out there and
to be honest I thought the referee handled it really well.
"We got a couple of bookings. Zavon's was for dissent and
that will be dealt with internally and the other was one of our
defenders when their player was breaking through, which we'll
accept.
"But the boys did also show great restraint in terms of not
retaliating to some of the provocation."
With a break in the Premier Academy League over the Christmas and
New Year period, Hammers next League game is not until January 7th
when they take on Ipswich Town at Little Heath.
"We've got a good couple of weeks break," said Tony,
"and we'll use that to get the boys refreshed for the
second half of the season when hopefully we can go out and have a
good go at catching League leaders Southampton."
Tony's Youngsters Bounce Back
12th December 2005