Tony's Youngsters Bounce Back



TONY Carr admitted his young Hammers had needed a victory against Millwall and the West Ham Uited Academy Director was delighted with the way his side handled a tough encounter against Millwall.

He said: "Millwall never make it easy for you, so we knew it was always going to be a difficult game.

"It's always a battle and we had to deal with that and try to play our football as best we could, which I think we did.

"We scored two very good goals through David Cowley. The first was a definite penalty and the second was a nice little chip, which beat a goalkeeper who otherwise had an excellent game and kept them in the match for long periods.

"At 1-0 the game is always in the balance, and it was like that for quite a while. But our second goal killed the game and in the end we could have had three or four."

In a fiercely competitive London derby at Millwall's training ground, Tony was also pleased with the attitude shown by his players in a game that could have turned nasty.

He added: "There were one or two nasty tackles out there and to be honest I thought the referee handled it really well.

"We got a couple of bookings. Zavon's was for dissent and that will be dealt with internally and the other was one of our defenders when their player was breaking through, which we'll accept.

"But the boys did also show great restraint in terms of not retaliating to some of the provocation."

With a break in the Premier Academy League over the Christmas and New Year period, Hammers next League game is not until January 7th when they take on Ipswich Town at Little Heath.

"We've got a good couple of weeks break," said Tony, "and we'll use that to get the boys refreshed for the second half of the season when hopefully we can go out and have a good go at catching League leaders Southampton."