Ok, Wednesday evening at Oxford was bitterly disappointing to put it mildly but it showed one thing very clearly – the Hammers academy conveyor belt is still operating very nicely indeed.
Nathan Holland’s arrival in the first team – and the emergence of Ben Johnson and Conor Coventry – demonstrates that the departure of Terry Westley and arrival of Dmitri Halajko as lead coach has been a highly successful transition.
Fifteen games undefeated tells its own story and with striker Xande Silva now not far away from a return following surgery for a bowel obstruction, it’s fair to expect some fireworks from the squad who currently sit at the top of Premier League Two Division Two three points clear.
Beyond that the lads have also collected maximum points in both of their Leasing.com and Premier League International Cup opening fixtures.
Halajko can have few complaints about his squad’s progress ahead of the visit of Sunderland to the Chigwell Construction Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
And he explained: “We’re where we want to be. The players’ performances play an important role in us judging our progress; we’re a development team so we want to develop, improve and win, and so far we’ve managed to do all of that.
“That’s a quarter of the side’s league fixtures gone – twenty five per cent of the league campaign. There’s still a long way for us all to go, but that first period we’re happy with.”
Pic via www.whufc.com
Sunderland have managed to collect just a single point so far as they sit bottom of the table.
But the Hammers lead coach said: “I think they’ll be doing their hardest to turn around their recent form. It’s always a really dangerous thing, because that could turn at any point.
“We’ll treat them like we do every team. We’ll want to try and control the game, and we’ll want to get into a position where we’re in charge of the game.”
“We’ve had a bit of time off so Steve Potts will have got together the opposition game plan, which he’s excellent at.
“So far every game the season he’s put together what the opposition do, how they play, how he’s spotted we can stop them, and every game he’s got it spot on so far.”