Playing Hard

AFTER the dust had settled on Hammers ill-tempered clash with Preston, Alan Pardew took stock of his side's promotion chances and admitted that his team must now focus their attentions on securing a Play-off place.

Hammers dropped out of the top six after the 2-1 defeat and were replaced by Reading, the team they meet on Saturday at the Madjeski Stadium.

Pards and his players must now lift themselves for what will be another crucial game in West Ham United's season.

"The underlying thread of this League is that it's very open," he explained, "and that means we're still in with a great chance, despite losing to Preston.

"The game was disappointing and means that automatic promotion is now realistically beyond us.

"But that certainly won't stop us pushing and giving everything we've got. There's still a lot to play for and we've got to focus on moving back into the Play-off places.

"We've got a game in hand over the teams around us and if we win that we'll be right back in that promotion zone.

"We play Reading on Saturday, which will be another massive game for us, followed by two home games in a week, so there's still a lot to prepare for and that's what we'll be focusing on in the coming week."

Reflecting on the Preston game, Alan admitted that his side's performance did not meet the standards required and confessed that the controversial sending-off of Tomas Repka late in the first-half was to key to the match's outcome.

"It was a really difficult game for us," admitted Pards. "We had one or two players that weren't as good as they should have been, but it the task was made almost impossible for us after the sending off.

"The decision was key to the game and to lose a player as important as Tomas was a set-back on a day that saw us deal with a lot of blows."

With so much riding on the match, tempers were frayed right from the kick-off and the game was marred with more than its share of ugly scuffles. The Hammers manager felt that his players certainly could have conducted themselves better in the heat of battle.

"I've never seen my player so incensed with some of the antics on the pitch," he said. "There was lots of tension on both sides, but we could have handled the situation better as a team and that's a problem I'll be looking to address.

"We needed to deal with the game and show a more disciplined attitude. It's something we'll put right before Reading, which will be another very tough game for us."