Holmar on a high

West Ham United reserves conclude their season on Tuesday evening with a trip to the south coast to face Portsmouth.

Young Icelandic defender Holmar Eyjolfsson is determined to end the campaign on a high with a win at Havant and Waterlooville's West Leigh Park stadium. A win there would cap a great few days for the 18-year-old Eyjolfsson, after he travelled with the first-team for their weekend game with Aston Villa.

"We are determined to end the season on a high," Eyjolfsson said. "Personally, the season looks like it is ending on a high, but it hasn't all gone how I wanted it to. It is getting there. I want to do as well as I can, play as well as I can and do well in the last reserve game and see where that takes us."

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Eyjolfsson has endured a stop-start season, but after being ruled out for much of the winter, he has featured in four of the last five reserve games and is already looking ahead to next season, where he aims to follow in the footsteps of his former Under-18 team-mates by making his bow for the first team.

"It gives you an incentive to work towards the first team and shows that you can do it and gets you hungrier to do it. I want to break into the first team - that is my goal.

"It's been a hard season because of the injuries, but I am getting back now and I'm focusing on ending the season well and then coming back strongly next pre-season and keeping away from injuries."

After making the successful step up from youth-team football this campaign, Eyjolfsson has enjoyed the challenge of facing experienced Premier League and international footballers in recent weeks. Last week's 4-2 reverse against West Bromwich Albion saw 42-times capped South Korean forward Do-Heon Kim provide another stern examination of the youngster's development.

"It was good experience coming up against these players but you want to do better than we did. We wanted to keep a clean sheet but that didn't happen. You take the positives, learn from the bad thing and get more motivated for the next game."

Icelandic Under-21 international Eyjolfsson has struck up a formidable partnership with regular reserve-team captain Bondz 'Gala this season, although their pairing could be temporarily put on hold tonight should 'Gala not recover from the ankle injury that kept him out of the Gianfranco Zola's squad for the 1-1 weekend draw at Villa Park.

Reserve-team manger Alex Dyer is expected to name another youthful line up for the season-ender with several players who featured for the Under-18s in Saturday's 2-1 defeat at Coventry set to be involved. This means the likes of Adam Street, Matthew Fry, Oliver Lee and Anthony Edgar could all be called upon again by Dyer.

West Ham sit fourth in the Barclays Premier Reserve League South with 22 points from 15 games. Tuesday's hosts are one place and three points below, but could go above the Hammers with a victory in the match, which kicks-off at 7pm.