Darren Randolph was wearing a broad smile after keeping his first clean sheet of 2017 in Saturday’s Premier League win over Crystal Palace.
West Ham United’s Republic of Ireland international goalkeeper produced another calm and assured performance, while the defenders in front of him restricted the Eagles to just one shot on target – a Yohan Cabaye volley which Randolph dealt with comfortably.
Having helped the Hammers end a run of three straight defeats, the No1 says Slaven Bilic’s side can build on their confidence-boosting 3-0 victory at Middlesbrough on Saturday.
Darren, after a challenging week, that victory seems to have given everybody associated with the Club a real lift?
“Yeah, I was saying in an interview for talkSPORT before the game how important it was to get the win, especially after the week the Club had.
“We went out there and knew it would be a tough game. The first half was pretty boring! It is always hard to break a team down when they put men behind the ball, Sam Allardyce knew how he wanted to set his team up and it worked for them in the first half.
“We changed a few things and managed to get three very good goals.”
We had a couple of hairy moments before half-time, with James Tomkins poking wide from close-range and the Yohan Cabaye volley you saved?
“Tonks had a chance and a few other crosses flashed across the box, but Palace are dangerous and they’ve got dangerous wide men with good delivery, height, speed, power, pace, everything, so we knew we’d need to battle away.
“We knew they’d have chances or half-chances, which they had, but they didn’t amount to anything. We stayed in the game and managed to get three goals ourselves.”
Sam Byram and James Collins were introduced at half-time after a long time out injured and neither looked like they had been away…
“Ginge and Sam came in and even Michail Antonio had a fever in the days before the game and he put in a good shift. He had three assists in about 15 minutes, so he should be sick more often!
“This game showed how much you need a squad because we needed bodies and players who could come in and do a job, which they did. They came into the team and didn’t look like they needed time to settle.
“Again, we produced good performances all around and got what we deserved.”
As a goalkeeper, you must have been pleased with a clean sheet?
“I’ve said before that I always prefer a win over a clean sheet, and we needed the win badly. I wouldn’t have cared if we’d scored in the last minute or won 5-4 as long as we won the game.
“To have won 3-0 looks good.”
You could feel the unity between the fans and the team throughout the game at the end of a difficult week, couldn’t you?
“It was the loudest it has been inside London Stadium for a few games. You could feel the backing that not only the team but the manager had.
“The whole stadium got behind us and got behind the manager and the fans showed their faith and belief they have in him.”