Kemp hungry to defend title

DK
  • West Ham United PL2 travel to Newcastle United in the Premier League Cup last 16 on Saturday
  • The Hammers played out a 0-0 draw with the Toon Army in the north east on Monday
  • Winger Dan Kemp believes the team are hungry to progress in the competition

Dan Kemp believes having the status of reigning champions makes West Ham United PL2 hungrier to win the Premier League Cup again.

The Hammers won the trophy last season after beat Hull City on penalties in the final, and visit St. James’ Park for the second time in a week on Saturday to face Newcastle United in the last 16.

The Hammers finished second in Group E, which meant an away in the first knockout round, and Kemp says the team are keen to defend their title.

“Obviously winning it last year, it makes you want to win it even more this year,” he said. “The lads did great to win it last year and hopefully we can defend the trophy.

“We did well in the group and we know the areas we need to improve on. Hopefully the things we’ve been working on will show this weekend.”

The Hammers were in the north east on Monday when they took on the Toon Army in Premier League 2 Division 2.

Despite being down to ten men for 60 minutes of the match after Arthur Masuaku’s red card, Terry Westley’s did brilliantly to hold on for a point, and could even have snatched all three.

“We had to dig deep on Monday and it’s good that we can play them again so quickly after,” Kemp continued. “We went down to ten men early and we couldn’t show fully what we can do. But hopefully we can play really well this weekend and go through.

“We still created some good chances even though we had ten men and we could have easily won the game. We definitely expect to go there and win this weekend with the players we have in our team and if we have 11 men on the pitch.

“After the team performance last week, we have a lot of confidence going into this weekend.”