Glenn's Promise

Glenn Roeder has pledged to make the Hammers more effective away from home as he prepares his squad to face Blackburn on Sunday.
He stresses that he shares the supporters' disappointment about the performance at Everton, and says:
"If I had been one of our supporters making the long journey home I would have been very upset, and they have every right to be, because the defending was abysmal.
"And on the back of going goals behind it is hard to mount too many attacks and give the fans something to shout about - we let those supporters down.
"You have to put your hands in the air when you haven't performed; you have to take it on the shin and get on with life.
"The way Radjinski, for example, was allowed to score was diabolical defending, even in the fact that he was allowed to go round Shaka.
"I've heard it said that was a typical West Ham away performance, but that is just not acceptable, and I can't live with that.
"If we have got the tag of being a soft touch away from home I need to bring in some more players because we need to change that label.
"It is hard, but it is not impossible, and it will not be achieved overnight.
"But I am aware of that label over the years; West Ham have been famous for some great victories at home and some very poor performances away from home and you can go back probably 20 or 30 years.
"We have taken only one point from our four away games and the performances at Everton and Middlesbrough are just not acceptable for this club.
"We conceded four absolutely rotten goals at Everton - they were cheap goals given away with slack and poor defending, and it is just not on.
"We have to change the mentality of the club, and we have got to be a lot tougher away from home and difficult to beat.
"It was rank bad defending with individual mistakes; I don't dig out individuals in public because it would be the wrong thing to do, and we keep things tight within the club.
"But there were some very poor defensive performances at Everton and it needs to be sorted out; we could have conceded within ten seconds of the kick off.
"It is amazing that the people concerned weren't concentrating from then because we could have gone a goal behind to Kevin Campbell but fortunately we scrambled it away.
"Then Paolo had the best chance of the game early on, but it just shows you he is human."
Glenn studied the tape of the 5-0 defeat at Goodison when he returned to London, and he adds:
"I'm not just saying it, it is an X-rated video that I looked at after the game; I have seen the four second half goals many times and it is clearly apparent that there are individual mistakes in all of them.
"If that continues those people concerned, if I get the people in I want, will find it very difficult to play too much football for us."
He says he did not rant and rave in the immediate aftermath of the game but adopted a more pragmatic approach after seeing the video.
"It is best after a game when temperatures are running high not to start shouting and screaming at individuals in case your assessment is wrong," he says.
He admits that he would have preferred the chance to get his players together on the Monday after the game, but that was not possible because of international commitments.
"In a perfect world it would have happened but as we know we don't live in a perfect world," he says.
"We have to be mentally tougher and physically tougher to grind out a result at Blackburn before the two home games.
"I don't think anyone can have any complaints with the home form, but you can't rely on your home form alone, you have to be picking up four or five wins away in a season, and in the performances against Middlesbrough and Everton we didn't look at any time as if we would get a win.
"I was very disappointed with those two performances and we have to solve the problem and make sure we are much more resilient on our travels."