Tony Celebrates Youths' First Win

TONY Carr was delighted with the performance of his Hammers Under-18 team, as they ran out 2-0 winners at Cardiff City and secured their first three points of the season in the FA Premier Academy Under-18 League.

Goals from Hogan Ephraim and Zavon Hines earned West Ham United the victory after a strong performance.

Tony said: "I thought we played really well against Cardiff. My only complaint was that despite it being our best performance of the season we should have scored more goals.

"We missed some good chances and although we thoroughly deserved to win, we were at 1-0 for a long time and they might have snatched an equaliser on one or two occasions.

"I had to admit that was going through my mind in the last ten minutes. That's why we put Zavon Hines on to give us some fresh legs up front, and he came up with the second goal that wrapped the game up for us.

"It was a fully deserved win and we set a good standard for ourselves that hopefully we can build on now."

Tony was also delighted with the clean sheet, with First Year stopper David Blackmore earning his first shut-out of the season.

"It was good for David to keep a clean sheet," he added. "I was pleased with his performance, but as a unit the defence were magnificent. Cardiff are a good side who have had some excellent results this season, including drawing 0-0 with Arsenal.

"But we countered their threat and dominated the game.

"We had bad memories of coming to Cardiff from last season. We didn't play very well and were beaten by a goal in injury time that left a sour taste.

"That was probaby in our minds, but this was a much better performance and when we got the second goal it really killed the game."