Curbishley content with draw

But Ljungberg suffers a hammer blow with injury woe

By Hayley   Last updated: 26th April 2008

West Ham v Newcastle Mark Noble

Noble: Celebrates opener

Related links

Teams

Players

Also see

Alan Curbishley has rued his West Ham side's lack of finishing power to kill off Newcastle, who came back from two down to steal a share of the spoils.

The Hammers boss was happy with his side's attacking abilities when they were cruising at 2-0, but felt that the lack of finishing in the second-half proved costly.

"After playing so well for 40 minutes and racing into a two-nil lead, which I think could've been a bit more, to go back in at half-time at 2-2 was not good," he told Sky Sports.

"I think we had chances again in the second-half but we needed to score and Newcastle were a bit flat today.

"I don't think they really got going and caused us too many problems but we just got caught in the middle of the park, 2-0 up and playing ever so well and we looked like we could attack them whenever we got the ball."

Frantic

After a frantic first-half which saw Newcastle's Obafemi Martins and Geremi reply in quick succession to Mark Noble and Dean Ashton's earlier goals, the second-half failed to live up to the same expectations.

But Curbishley was pleased with the Hammers faithful after getting behind their team and sees this season as a success.

"This time last year we were going through a struggle and they were instrumental in getting us out of trouble, their support was vital to us," he said.

"I was pleased for everybody today, they got their attacking game but we didn't get the three points."

Broken rib

With a huge amount of injury setbacks, Freddy Ljungberg was another to add to the long list after a suspected broken rib during the 2-2 draw, but Curbishley is pleased that his Upton Park side have battled on regardless.

"This season's been a success considering the problems we've had, the squad now shown me it can compete in the Premiership.

"Week in, week out we've had to change it around, mix-and-match if you like, and they've done fantastically well. I've been saying that all season and it's made my squad that much stronger now.

On this year's campaign he added: "All season we've been mid-table, if we'd have got the points we could've been attacking the teams above us and we've blown that a little bit so we've been in mid-table all season and we want to stay in that top half of the old Ceefax pages if we can."