Hammers benefit from weekend of preparation

Mervyn Day believes the Hammers have benefited from a weekend without a match and will be raring to go when they travel up north to take on Blackburn on Saturday.

"We've all worked hard over the last week or so," he said. "The coaches got a chance to go and do a few scouting jobs and look at a few different teams too.

"In some ways, after last weekend, everyone wanted to get right back and play straight away, but in other ways it's been a useful time to reflect and put a few things right.

"Had we played at the weekend we would have been missing an extra two or three players through injury. So, giving them an extra week to recover was an ideal scenario.

"We've also got one or two back in training who probably won't be available for Saturday but at least they've started back. Then we have an international week so by the time the Middlesbrough game comes round we're hoping to have a much better bill of health."

Merv admitted the team would need to draw on their first-half performance against Spurs when they face Mark Hughes' in-form side.

"Throughout the Spurs game we were very committed and hungry," he said. "I felt we were hungrier than Spurs and we were the authors of our own downfall  because we were naïve and we got caught. 

"But the positives are that there was a great team spirit and they worked really hard for each other."

To see the full interview with Mervyn, log on to WHUTV here.