Impressive Under 23’s defender Ben Johnson was back in action last night captaining the lads as they crushed Norwich 4-0 but wasn’t entirely happy with the team’s performance.
After a long spell of injury he admitted that while he was delighted to be back the Canaries were “all of the Hammers in the first half” and that he was disappointed with the team’s first half[performance.
However, the victory means, with just four games to play in Premier League 2 Division 2, West Ham U23s remain unbeaten and, more importantly, three points ahead at the table summit.
Oladapo Afolayan’s scored the opener for West Ham midway through the first 45 minutes with Amadou Diallo, Ademipo Odubeko; and Xande Silva adding the second, third and fourth strikes.
And whilst the young right back was critical of aspects of the game he was delighted to be back on the pitch after a very long lay off and providing the assist for Diallo’s goal.
Speaking at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2020/march/03-march/ben-johnson-west-ham-u23s-were-clinical-will-need-improve he said: “It’s a great feeling to be back on the pitch,” he told whufc.com.
“I’d played last Tuesday in a friendly, but just to get minutes and try to get my fitness back and rhythm is what I’m aiming to do. We got the win and it was good for me to get 90 minutes in the bank, so I’m happy.
“Looking back, first half, they were all over us in our final third, which was disappointing. We weren’t doing our non-negotiables: we weren’t tackling or making any significant passes, and we were bringing pressure upon ourselves, which wasn’t good.
“We had a discussion at half-time, which was positive. We needed to get our running stats higher than theirs and do what we needed to do in front of goal.
“We came in one up at half-time, which was good, and then got three goals in the second half which was much more positive. It is about scoring goals and winning games, but we need to make sure we play better than the first half if we want to win the league.”
He added: “There were some good finishes and glimpses of good play which got us our rewards, even though we didn’t always deserve them at times.
“We were fantastic in being clinical, which is what we wanted to be during the game. We wanted to just put our chances away, because in our last couple of games, we’ve not been ruthless enough. It was good to see us four score tonight and not concede any.
“We’d like to watch it back and see how we can improve for the next game and kick on from there.”
West Ham United U23s’ next game is the Premier League International Cup quarter-final away to Derby County. Kick-off at Pride Park is at 7pm on Tuesday 10 March.