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Hammers confusion

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By Hughie Southon

There may be a simple answer to the confusion I suffered as I watched the second half of the game at Cambridge United last night,

Unfortunately, after a night’s kip I am still unable to reach a conclusion as to why the manager decided to bring five under 23s into the action.

Don’t get me wrong. I am usually more than happy to see our youngsters get chances given the reluctance to promote them to the first team squad, but I still can’t quite accept that last night was the right time and place.

As the second half progressed, he chose to introduce five and before going any further let me say that goal scoring Pierre Ekwah was deeply impressive

That, however, is another issue and what confused me was why, given this was a game to get the Premier League lads up to fitness, they were out there at all.

Pre-season friendlies are an entirely different thing to the purposes of last night’s game and surely shouldn;t have been used in the same way

Like I say, it was nice to see the youngsters in one respect but there remains a big WHY? in my mind.

Cambridge United are barely much better than many Premier League 2 teams so the manager is hardly going to learn much more about them than he already knows.

I’ll leave it to you lot to give me a clue.

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Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!"

Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

6 comments

  • Michael Miller says:

    A lot of what David Moyes does is very baffling, but it was a Testimonial and little more than an exhibition – but you would think that it was a perfect opportunity to get some football into the lads who are at least potential first teamers! 🙄

  • Babelm@n says:

    Maybe Moyes is just out of his depth now, really should have been replaced at start of world cup.

  • DJHammer says:

    Any idea why Soucek was not in the lineup Hugh?

  • hammerpete6 says:

    Agree Hugh it seems like ‘box ticking’ to critics like me who have shouted for the young ones. Sling five on for a meaningless half develops nobody, and as you point out, does nothing for first team sharpness. Some may ask what do I want? Well, one or two introduced strategically, nurtured and developed whilst filling a need. Start there.

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