Alan Curbishley looks back on a day when a winning Hammers team were booed off the pitch - and asks for a little bit of love ...
"With the situation we've found ourselves in - yesterday morning Matty Upson and Jon Spector pulled out, which meant with Anton Ferdinand out as well and Danny Gabbidon and James Collins, to say the least that's a lot of centre-half's missing.We had to juggle it up; young Tomkins came in and did fantastically well for us. We had a few people returning from injury but have gone out and got the result. Sometimes the result is more important - especially after losing the last three games, we did need to bounce back.
Derby, I felt, played well all game and with a little bit of freedom. They bnroke on us and got the goal, they broke on us and nearly scored before that. So I knew it was going to be a tough game today with all the expectation levels on us; you're playing Derby with the position they find themselves in. But I knew with changes and people coming back in from injury I knew perhaps we were going to run out of steam.
I just think that there's a lack of appreciation of what has happened here. I can't keep going on about how many times we've suffered injuries, key players are missing and that the players that have been playing have done fantastically well.
We've managed to keep ourselves out of any trouble. I know we've been in striking distance for some time to catch some of the teams above us but I will look back on this season as a success.
So I'd just like to call for a little bit of appreciation and realism. The problems that this club have had all season - and it started really in the second week of pre-season - we've done alright.
I was looking at the game and how we dropped off a bit; one or two were getting tired, Freddie Ljungberg and Julien Faubert. We'd conceded ground and were finding it a little bit tough. Derby scored in that period but we bounced back, we got the goal.
The way the game was going it was 'are Derby going to equalise or were we going to get the third?' But we held out, and I'll look at the result tomorrow morning and I'll be well pleased with it. As I said earlier, I know what's going on here, I know what we've been through so I'm pleased with what's happened.
I think that if I can pick a team for next week that will be as much as I can hope for if it's anything like this week. But we've been in the top ten all season, we'd like to finish at least there, if we can, and we've got three games left."
* Alan Curbishley was talking to the BBC. KUMB.com remain banned from attending press conferences at the Boleyn Ground and therefore unable to bring you full coverage; you can read more about that here.
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