Grant happy with West Ham turn-around

West Ham boss Avram Grant was pleased with the way his team bounced back with a comfortable 2-0 win over Barnsley in the FA Cup.

The Hammers were thumped 5-0 by Newcastle in the Premier League on Wednesday, but goals from Jonathan Spector and Frederic Piquionne helped them return to winning ways in their third round Cup tie against the Championship outfit at Upton Park.

Grant said he hoped the win drew a line under their poor form in the league.

“It was good football, we had young players playing today so for us it was very important we recovered well from our game against Newcastle,” Grant said.

“We don’t analyse one game, what’s happened? Why has it happened? We analyse the period.”

“The last few weeks for us have been the best of the season because of the results, because of the football, even with what happened on Wednesday so we want to continue with this period not only analyse one game.”

“Look at the game today, look at the games before. This is the best time of our season and we want to continue with this on Tuesday.”

With the club in the middle of a busy January schedule Grant took the opportunity to rest some of his first choice players, including Scott Parker and Matthew Upson, and instead handed the responsibility to the Hammers’ younger brigade.

“We have a vision in this club that we give our younger players a chance to play which is what we did today, to trust in them to do the job,” Grant said.

“We played with seven or eight players who are under 23 and we are very pleased from them.”

Barnsley manager Mark Robins said it had been a disappointing night for his side, who are currently battling in 16th in England’s second tier competition.

“Make no mistake, we were second best in the first half but the second half was slightly different. It is symptomatic of our season, where we played well for 45 minutes,” he said.

“It will be difficult to search for any positives. It could have been comprehensive. The positive was that we only conceded two goals and hit the crossbar.”