Joël Veltman believes the long hours on the road and disrupted sleep this week proved entirely worthwhile after West Ham United secured consecutive away victories in the EFL Championship.
The squad clocked up more than 700 miles travelling to Lincoln City and Swansea City, squeezing two matches into less than 72 hours.
A dominant 6-0 win at Lincoln on Wednesday was followed by a late-night return to Rush Green Training Ground in the early hours of Thursday.
Then came an afternoon session and an evening of recovery. The players trained again on Friday morning before flying to Wales, overnighting in Swansea and then producing a gritty 1-0 victory over the league leaders that returned them to the automatic promotion places.
Veltman: Always look at the positives
“I think the result was the most important thing, Veltman told the official club website.
“Back-to-back, two away games. It’s always tough with the travelling and everything. We survived the second half.
“We should have scored the winning goal, the 2-0, I would say, to make it easier, but we did very well and we limited them.
“The schedule and travelling is not easy but at the end, always look at the positives.
“Of course, you come back at three o’clock in the morning, you fall asleep, and then a couple of hours later you’re at the training ground, which is tough, but you’re a footballer for a reason, to play games.
“That short notice, short time period where you play loads of games, I like it because you train less, so more games, I don’t mind it.
“You get three points like this, it makes it all worthwhile. It’s an amazing week, I think. We go again next Saturday [at home to Southampton].”
The Dutch defender’s influence continues to grow. West Ham have now kept clean sheets in four of his last five Championship appearances, and his experience proved vital in helping the side close out Saturday’s hard-fought success.
We deserved it
“One hundred per cent [we were pleased with how we defended],” he confirmed.
“They’re a good team. They’re first in the league for a reason but every game we play, we come to win.
“At the end, we deserved it because you saw the chances from us as well. We had a couple of 1v1s with the goalkeeper.
“Like I said, we should, in a nice way, kill the game earlier.
“If we don’t do that, it’s always a bit tough at the end, but we stick together and, like I said, we get the win.
“It was an enjoyable win, especially for the goalkeeper [Mads Hermansen], because he loves clean sheets.
“Obviously, as well, we’re scoring goals. We’re always confident to score goals in every game. If we have that in mind, then a clean sheet will obviously help to win games.”
Comments.
Loading comments…