West Ham United’s development squad won’t abandon their attacking philosophy regardless of the status of their opposition, according to Lead Coach Dmitri Halajko.
The Hammers’ U21s squad travels to Exeter City on Wednesday for their final group stage match of the Leasing.com Trophy, knowing a positive result is likely to be a requisite for progression.
Exeter have won their two opening games against Cheltenham and Newport, whilst West Ham’s win against the latter means they are tied on points with the former, going into the final round of games.
The Grecians are currently flying high in League Two, but despite the absence of a number of players due to international call-ups, Halajko is determined his side will not betray the attacking principles which have seen them go unbeaten in Premier League 2 Division 2 thus far.
“I think what we’ve shown in all our cup games is that we really go for it,” Halajko explained. “We’ve played exciting, attacking football in all of the games, and we’ve been really good going forward.
“We’ve gone for the win - we haven’t been cautious or cagey, and we haven’t waited for the other team to make mistakes. We’ve tried to go on the attack and try to win the game from the first minute.
“We won’t change that against Exeter. We want to be a team that plays good and attacking football, and that’s what we’ll do.”
We’ll try to sustain our form. It’s always hard, but the ideal level now is for us to do it week after week after week.
Dmitri Halajko
The young Hammers have been imperious domestically so far this season, and currently sit three points clear at the top of their league, having won nine out of ten games.
Their only defeat in domestic competition thus far was at Cheltenham Town in the Leasing.com Trophy, a game they led 3-1 at half-time before the home side mounted an impressive comeback.
Looking ahead to the latter half of the season, Halajko has challenged his players to maintain such fantastic form, as he believes it would mark the next stage of their development as a squad.
He said: “We’ll try to sustain our form. It’s always hard, but the ideal level now is for us to do it week after week after week.
“In younger age groups inconsistency can come and go, but now these lads are starting to mature, they’re starting to get to the age now where they need to churn out experienced performances and do it week after week after week. So far, they’ve done that brilliantly, so we’ll try and sustain it for as long as we can.”
As for Wednesday night’s fixture with Exeter, Halajko mentioned that his side have tailored their preparation for a game against Football League opposition.
“It’s a different type of game, so training has been slightly different,” he explained. “It’ll be maybe a different kind of threat than we’re used to when we play our Premier League 2 games. We’ll be ready with our training programme, which is bespoke for that game.”
As always, you’ll be able to follow West Ham United U21s' game at St James Park through whufc.com’s live blog; kick-off is at 7pm on Wednesday evening.
