Andy On Debut

Andy Melville admits it was a case of "mixed feelings" after his West Ham debut - and says he will be hoping to help West Ham achieve some clean sheets in his initial month on loan.

This season West Ham have gone ahead 11 times in games, only for the opposition to bounce back, and, looked at it one way, this represents a 'loss' of 25 points.

A two-goal lead was ceded on Saturday, of course, and Andy, who has been involved in West Ham's own recovery from a goal down, says:

"It was definitely a case of mixed feelings on my debut the way it went - the first half performance was very positive and if we can take that to the rest of the season we shouldn't have a problem with the remaining games.

"Hopefully we can keep a couple of clean sheets because that is what we need to do.

"We were disappointed about the way it had panned out but there were a lot of positives out there."

There were, however, mitigating circumstances in the 3-3 draw, as Andy points out.

"It was a reshuffle on Saturday because there was only Christian that had played at the back the week before so there were a few lads that come into it," he explains, referring to the fact that fellow Fulham player Jon Harley had joined with him on loan, Steve Bywater had replaced David James in goal, he himself had of course come in for Fulham-bound Ian Pearce, and Anton Ferdinand had been preferred to Robbie Stockdale - who ended up coming on at right midfield for Marlon Harewood in the second half.

Regarding his own move, he adds:

"It happened in two days so it has been a bit of a rush job but the lads have been brilliant and made me feel welcome and I will have a full week's training next week.

"I would consider staying longer and we will wait and see what happens."