Samuelsen stars in great victory

By Jack Lebeau

Follow Jack on Twitter @JackLebeau66 

West Ham U23s overcame an awful performance from the referee to beat League Two side Swindon 3-2 in the Checkatrade Trophy  at the County Ground last night.

Goals from Samuelsen, Makasi and Kemp for West Ham settled the tie deservedly in West Ham’s favour with the Norwegian grabbing the first within six minutes, nicking the ball off the defender and rounding the keeper before slotting home from a couple of yards.

We went into the break 1-0 up but Swindon shortly made it 1-1 from the penalty spot. This was the start of the referee losing control over the game as Swindon were all set to take a free-kick on the edge of the box before the referee dubiously changed his mind to a penalty.

Within a minute of the goal, the West Ham fans effectively awarded our own side a free-kick after screaming at the referee for hand-ball when a Swindon player picked the ball up thinking the referee had awarded a throw-in despite the ball being dead still but perfectly on the line.

Makasi regained the lead for us just before the 75th minute after the ball fell to him about eight  yards out and he slotted home easily into the bottom corner.

The lead didn’t last long though with Swindon rising high to head home and make it 2-2 but the lads refused to lie .  down and allow the tie go to penalties and  substitute Dan Kemp to make it 3-2 to the Hammers; slotting home from three yards after Martinez had hit the post.

Neufville saw red late on so youngsters finished the game with ten men. New signing Haksabanovic would have been Man of the Match based on the first half (very impressive) but he fell away in the second half a bit so that has to go to Samuelsen who was excellent through the middle tonight.

Makasi and Holland also had very noteworthy performances. All in all, it was an incredible game that we deserved to win and  it was brilliant to see ourselves match up to the professionals.