Allardyce on... Sheffield United

  • by Staff Writer
  • Wednesday, 27th August 2014

Sam Allardyce remained upbeat despite having witnessed his team tumble out of the Capital One Cup on penalties. His full post-match presser here...

Sam: that must be hard to take given the performance, given that you were winning..?

... Given the fact that we gave an own goal away? Given the fact that Sheffield United had one shot on target? One shot on target in the first 90 minutes and in the 30 minutes of extra time. At the end of the day it's our fault, isn't it?

I think it was an inspired performance by the goalkeeper for Sheffield United. Whatever we threw at him he saved it or blocked it and if it came off him it seemed to drop to one of the Sheffield United boys.

So from our point of view, it's a frustrating night after a very good performance by players who have just joined us in their first full games - [that's Diafra] Sakho and Enner [Valencia]. Considering Enner's not played a game since the World Cup, that was going to be his first 60 minutes or so - but Sakho tweaked his back so he's had to play 120 minutes.

It was Rav's first game since 30 minutes at Stevenage, so it's really good for him. The three young players under 21 were very impressive; Danny Potts, Diego Poyet and Reece Burke at the back. The rest tried their very best and played very well up to the fact that we didn't score more goals than Sheffield United, which we should have done but didn't.

We're very frustrated. Then to lose on penalties as well was even more frustrating.

Was this a competition in which you wanted to go far again? West Ham do have the Cup tradition thing.

Well like I just said, there's nowhere else to get members of my 25-man squad football at a very competitive level. Only the Capital One Cup that can do that. The rest of the time we can only train them and play amongst each other because the Under 21 league is not where you play them, because that's not competitive enough.

It's a disappointment that when you have a 25-man squad - which we're going to name two days after the [transfer] window shuts - a lot of them are going to have to keep themselves by training and training alone rather than getting a game in the Capital One Cup and making a statement to me.

The reason Adrian got the goalkeeping number one slot in the end was because of his performances in the Capital One Cup last year and a few others. So it's a disappointing night to go out of the competition.

Before the game started I was concerned by the fact that I already had five injured players who weren't available today; everybody knows those five first team players. Then there's players who needed a game or for whom it was their first game and there's young players that get a game.

To get through to the next round of the competition, and have those players and some of the players who come back from injury after the international break play again - like Matt Jarvis, Carl Jenkinson, James Collins plus Andy [Carroll] and Kevin [Nolan], who are a good way off - would have been fantastic.

Now we're going to have to find a different way of picking up their match fitness when they are fit - and keeping the players who played tonight fit on the training ground for when they're needed in the first team in the Premier League.

I know it was before your time but the shadow of Carlos Tevez was hanging over this. Do you appreciate how frustrating it must be for the fans to lose this?

Well we've lost on penalties at the end of the day and the fans know we should have won the game. We haven't been outplayed by Sheffield United, we haven't been under pressure, they've had one shot on target in the entire 90 minutes.

They made life very difficult for us by playing that defensive unit, which they are well within their right to when they come here. With the quality of players we had tonight, we opened them up time and time again with patience and good, quality football. At the end of the day, the end product deserted us tonight but that was mainly due to their goalkeeper making some top-class saves.

Young Poyet did well for you tonight?

Well him, Burke and Pottsy did nothing wrong at all. Praise to them, because they didn't look out of place, they didn't look like young players in that team tonight. It must have been a fantastic experience for them apart from, like everybody, losing on a penalty shootout.

I've got to ask - Ravel Morrison started with gloves and then in the second half, no gloves?

Rav's Rav... [laughs] Thank you.



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