West Ham United U23s ran out 6-0 winners against RSC Anderlecht on Friday afternoon in their final pre-season friendly.
Played at the RSC Anderlecht Training Centre the victory meant that West Ham completed their pre-season without defeat.
U23s Head Coach Dmitri Halajko was pleased with his side’s performance and attitude during the day trip to Belgium.
“It’s been a long day and the attitude and application of the lads from the first minute when they arrived at the training ground at 4:30am, right up until the last minute of the game was spot on.”
The Hammers had four different scorers on Friday afternoon and were unlucky not to have had more with the U23s twice being thwarted by the woodwork.
The hosts could have had no complaints with the score-line with West Ham dominating large spells of play and getting in-behind the backline at will.
“I think we’ve been threatening to do that to a team, we’ve had chances in all of our games during the pre-season and perhaps sometimes the thing we’ve been a bit critical of them is taking those chances or the quality in the final third.
"We’ve been happy during pre-season with our build-up, our pressing and the way we have played through the middle. Certainly, the one thing that we have challenged them with in the last two games is being a lot more clinical, breaking the back-line more and finishing.”
The performances of senior players Joe Powell in the first half and Dan Kemp in the second were particular standouts with both getting braces in Belgium
“It’s great to have the senior players set the example and the tone for the others to follow and they certainly did that today” said Halajko.
The Hammers were 3-0 up at the break and were able to give all six outfield substitutes the full second period. Halajko was glad to have a look at his whole squad ahead of the PL2 season starting next week.
“We had a few players back from injury so we wanted to make sure that they got some minutes and that we were able to get a fresh look at everyone so now we can start to look at what the team might look like next week.”
West Ham United U23s kick-off their Premier League 2 Division 2 season at home to Fulham on 9 August at the Chigwell Construction Stadium at Dagenham.