Ben Johnson will be part of the Under 23s team which tonight takes on Valencia B this evening and reckons the team can continue their extraordinary run of success.
So far they have avoided defeat in all 12 of their fixtures under lead coach Dmitri Halajko, ahead of tonight’s game at the Chigwell Construction Stadium in Dagenham (7pm).
This is the first the 2019/20 Premier League International Cup for both teams, a competition that allows squads from Category One academies to compete against some of Europe’s best.
He said: “It’s going to be a great fixture. It’s at home, and they’re bringing their ‘B’ side. It’s not their Under-23s, it’s their reserves, so it’ll be a very tough game.
“Last week [against Newport County in the Leasing.com Trophy], we were 4-1 down at half-time away from home – but we won 5-4. Not many teams out there are capable of doing that.
“We’ve got to push on and build on our results. There’s no point winning last week and then not playing in the same way this week. We’ll get our heads down, focus, and set our eyes on the Valencia game – and hopefully we can win it. There’s no reason why we can’t sustain this run.”
Last week’s sensational comeback victory against Newport came off the back of West Ham making a number of changes to their starting line-up.
Ben added: “Dmitri got us in at half-time and just changed everything through what he was saying. He changed our perspective on it, saying that momentum is so big in our game.
“It was important that we just had to play our game, and when we did that in the second half, we won the match.”
