Hammers under 23s 2 Manchester City under 23s 1
Toni Martinez and Nathan Holland led the charge as the Hammers under 23s came from behind to beat Manchester City at Dagenham today.
And that means the young Hammers have beaten the two Manchester clubs and drawn at Chelsea over their last three games.
The victory saw Terry Westley’s side move up to third in the Premier League 2 Division 1 table, ahead of both Manchester and north London clubs and Chelsea.
And they did it without Declan Rice who came on as a late sub for the first team and performed some heroics when the pressure was turned on during the second half.
After Taylor-Richards had given City a 20th minute lead Holland scored nine minutes later before Martinez smashed home a 25 yard winner in the 83rd minute.
And speaking to ClaretandHugh after the game Westley said: “Nathan was the best player on the pitch – he had a terrific game but Toni’s goal was something else.
He’s one of those it’s difficult to take off when he goes quiet because he’ll come up with something like that goal – he’s just a natural goalscorer.
“How close to the first team is he? It’s a really difficult one that. It’s tough breaking through as a striker because there’s so much competition in that position.”
Oh-some good news!
Our U-23’s are something else!
Bilic should have used a few of the players for the first team game.
After the win against Spurs, there was a definite psychological let-down.
Crystal Palace were more energetic, and we never got our passing/running game going (exception being the 2 great goals we scored).
Bilic made a critical mistake in implementing a 3-4-1-2 structure, which weakened our tired midfield even further. Had he stuck with the 3-5-2 (with Lanzini as ‘the’ central midfielder), we would have been much stronger, and been able to dominate play, keeping the ball in the Palace half, rather than being kept on the back-foot for most of the game.