- Sam Byram keen for more opportunities to start after impressing against Leicester City
- No22 handed first start since home defeat by Manchester City on 1 February
- Right-back completed 90 minutes for the fourth time this season
Sam Byram was unaware of the clamour among supporters for him to start for West Ham United on Saturday, but was pleased to be given a welcome chance to impress.
The No22 was back in the team for the first time since 1 February for the visit of Leicester City, and the common consensus was that the right-back did not do himself any harm with an eye-catching performance in the Hammers’ disappointing 3-2 defeat.
While the result was disappointing, Byram himself was naturally happy to get just his fourth 90 minutes of the season under his belt and is targeting an extended run in Slaven Bilic’s side.
“I try to stay off social media as much as I can and just focus on myself in training and how I can make myself better and help the team,” Byram told West Ham TV. “I’ve said ever since I’ve been here that I want to improve and keep getting better.
“It’s nice for me to get a start and get some fitness, which is what I’ve needed. I think you can train as much as you want but, to get match fitness, you want to play, so hopefully I can get games in and keep impressing.”
Byram’s display earned positive reviews from the Claret and Blue Army, with the 23-year-old making two tackles, three interceptions and two clearances. He also embarked on a succession of forays into the Leicester half, touching the ball 75 times – second-highest behind Manuel Lanzini – and delivering three crosses into the Foxes’ penalty area.
However, three defensive mistakes allowed Leicester to snatch victory from a game which, on the balance of play, West Ham could have won comfortably.
I think you can train as much as you want but, to get match fitness, you want to play, so hopefully I can get games in and keep impressing
Sam Byram
“But I think it’s happened too many times when we’ve started slow and it’s took falling a goal or even two goals down for us to lift it and really show what we can do, so it was a frustrating afternoon for us.
“We said at half-time that they’d scored three goals from nothing. They’ve not posed us a great attacking threat and they were three sloppy goals caused by lack of concentration from us as a team. We need to stop conceding like that. We will watch it back through the week and go from there.
“The chances we have had, to not get anything from the game is frustrating. We need to take the positives from the second half because we created lots of chances and we’ve moved the ball well.
“You can see, when we get the ball down and we pass it and we shift it from side to side, we do create opportunities and we need to put them away.”