Carling Cup News: Avram Grant happy with win over Manchester United
Avram Grant has come out and praised his team’s efforts after they knocked Manchester United out of the Carling Cup. It was an unbelievable result for the Hammers who played the Red Devils at their home stadium i.e. the Upton Park in East London. The terrific
result has come at the back of West Ham’s latest win in the English Premier League as well, as during the last round of matches at the weekend; West Ham defeated Wigan Athletic by three goals to one.
The four nil win over the former European Champions and the current holders of Carling Cup trophy came as no surprise to the crowd at West Ham as the faithful fans had believed in the side’s abilities since the first minute of the match which was a part
of the quarter finals of the Carling Cup. In the other quarter final, Arsenal came out on top against Wigan Athletic at the Emirates Stadium. Avram Grant’s men took the lead against Manchester United thanks to a goal by Jonathan Spector; however it was Carlton
Cole who added two more to their advantage before Spector added another one to seal the memorable result for the minnows.
Grant spoke after the match as he said, "I thought we could win but this is still an unbelievable result. We continue our progress. We scored four goals and could have scored more. But for me four is enough. To be in the semi-finals is very good for this
club. We are trying to build something step by step. We have done the right thing. We have played many more good games without winning so the players maybe have lost confidence.”
He added, "But the most important is to show mental strength and tonight was so unbelievable. The gap at the bottom of the Premier League was five points and is now three points. We have many games left and I'm sure that this shows we can be good in the
future."
Grant also lavished some extensive praise on the likes of Cole and Spector as these two ran the show for West Ham United against Sir Alex Ferguson’s side. The Israeli national stated, "Spector is a good professional and always tries hard. I changed his position
in training to midfield. I think that he saw the Barcelona performance against Madrid last night and thought that he can do that as well! For Cole the best way to do things is to do it on the pitch. Cole worked hard from the first minute and he knows how to
do it.”
The ex-Chelsea manager went onto say, "Every striker has bad times but you need to look back at the end of the season to see how he coped." The defeat to West Ham United also ended Manchester United’s 29 match unbeaten run in all competitions.
Sir Alex was justifiably disappointed with the result as he said, "I didn't expect that, that's for sure. If you analyze it the goals we gave away were absolutely too soft. We didn't expect that, they were terrible goals for us. We had one or two half chances
and Gabriel Obertan had a shot saved by the goalkeeper (Robert Green) which then hit the post. The goals killed it. You can't just give goals away at this level.”
The veteran manager concluded by saying, "That first goal was a break for them. We were in control in the early part, played some good football. But goals change games. The thing that sparked it was the goal that was disallowed because it got the crowd up.
It was clearly offside because it came off one of their players into the net. It was clearly offside but they celebrated for so long. It spurred them up."
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