Nathan Trott’s West Ham United Under 23’s manager Terry Westley praised his battling youngsters as they fought for over an hour with ten men to earn a share of the spoils against Newcastle United at St. James’ Park.
West Ham travelled to the north east to take on Newcastle and were reduced to ten men when Arthur Masuaku was shown a straight red card for an off-the-ball incident.
But, with wingers Dan Kemp and Nathan Holland filling in on both sides to help the defence, Westley’s men stood firm to record a goalless draw, and could have even nicked all three points in Premier League 2 with a number of good chances.
After the valuable point, the boss said, “Any game here, even with eleven men, was going to be a tough game, whoever we brought.
“They’ve had a very good run of results, they’re very settled, they have the same group of players and it was always going to be a very tough game.
“They’re in good form and here at St. James’, it was always going to be a difficult game. It made it doubly hard losing a man that early.
“You can’t fault our boys’ character, desire to play and we also had one or two really good opportunities maybe to even win the game and get a bit greedy.
“To come away from here with a point, with ten men in these circumstances – we have two games to go and all to play for.”
Marcus Browne was back in the starting XI after making a temporary return from loan club Wigan Athletic while there was also an opportunity for Tunji Akinola who replaced the injured Josh Pask early on.
And Westley was pleased with a number of individual performances after the draw.
“It’s probably the best I’ve seen Ashley Fletcher play in a game for us, against a physical side and they’re a lot older than us,” he continued.
“He took the ball in for us, had a great chance at the back post at the end of the first half, and he’s a player who can go in your first team and do a job for you.
“He was robust, he threatened the space in behind, and he challenge for balls in the air. Marcus also came back from Wigan as he hasn’t had a game for a few weeks, and he gave us that steely running in midfield.
“Tunji came on at centre-back and did really well to step in when Josh Pask came off injured. Dan Kemp also filled in on the right hand side, and we didn’t have to tell him too much because he’s an intelligent player. It was a really good performance for us.”
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