Grant wants to bolster Hammers

Avram Grant admitted his West Ham squad is in dire need of reinforcements after their 1-1 draw with Everton at Upton Park on Tuesday.

A Tony Hibbert own-goal gave West Ham the lead after 16 minutes, but Seamus Coleman equalised three minutes before the break to keep the Hammers entrenched in the relegation zone.

Grant paid tribute to his beleaguered squad – which has been hard hit by injuries in a busy holiday season – and he said it was unfair his squad had played two games in three days, while Everton were fresh after their Boxing Day game was postponed.

“I’m very pleased with the effort of the boys. It’s not easy to play two games in 48 hours when half the squad is injured,” he told Sky Sports.

“A few players played today who, in normal time, wouldn’t play, but they gave everything.”

“It’s not fair that one team played two games in 48 hours and the other team did not.”

Grant said he was hopeful of securing the services of Aston Villa midfielder Steve Sidwell when the January transfer window opens.

“I want Steve Sidwell because today we didn’t have one midfielder on the bench,” he said.

“We need to be a little stronger in some areas, especially as we have some long-term injuries. We are doing everything to sign a few players to make the squad stronger.”

Everton boss David Moyes, meanwhile, was left to once again rue his side’s inability to create chances and capitalise on them – a common theme throughout season 2010-11.

With just 21 goals for the campaign so far, Moyes is desperate for more from his front men but claimed financial constraints would prevent him from bringing in a big name in January.

“It’s known we’re quite tight for cash at this present time, so we’ll try and look round the loan market to see if we can do something,” he said.

Nevertheless, the Scot insisted his side were hard done by on Tuesday, and were unlucky not to take all three points.

“I thought if anybody deserved to win it, we deserved to win it, but we didn’t have enough chances at goal on (West Ham goalkeeper) Robert Green,” Moyes said.

“I thought we had a lot of the ball, but it was a bit like the start of the season with the same failing and it didn’t look like we could get that other goal.”