West Ham's Winston Reid (right) and Norwich's Harry Kane in action during the Barclays Premier League match at Upton Park, London.

Hammers defender reflective about winning penalty against Norwich

West Ham defender Winston Reid was wrestled to the ground by Norwich City defender Ryan Bennett and Mark Noble gave the Hammers an early lead from the penalty spot.

Just how much did they have to thank referee Mark Clattenburg, for what looked like a harsh penalty decision?

Reid himself was in two minds about the third-minute decision.

“It wasn’t the biggest penalty appeal,” admitted the 24-year-old New Zealand international.

“He was pulling my shirt, but, you know, sometimes you get them and sometimes you don’t.”

When you look at most games in the Premier League there is an incident like that almost every time the ball goes into the box and rarely do they result in penalties.

“I think if I had been defending that situation, I would have been disappointed, but fortunately we got the break we needed,” said Reid.

They certainly did and it was much needed as they battled to their first win in four games.

“Obviously in the last couple of games we haven’t got the results we wanted and then Reading away was a big disappointment,” said the centre-back, who has been in the best form of his career at Upton Park this season.

“It was a good win against Norwich and I thought we deserved it, I think we should have buried the game in the first half.

“We had a lot of chances, but we couldn’t put them in the back of the net.”

West Ham welcomed back Jack Collison and Ricardo Vaz Te to the starting line-up on Tuesday, but that did take its toll in the last 20 minutes as the team began to tire from their exertions.

“We used a lot of energy in the first half in trying to create the chances for us to win the game, so we did tire a little, but it is great for the team to have players coming back,” said Reid.

“The bench is starting to look good again and with Mo Diame and Andy Carroll hopefully coming back soon too, it should be good for us.

“It will give the manager more of an opportunity to rest a few players from time to time.”

One player he will not want to rest is Reid, who has been a rock at the heart of the West Ham defence, despite having to adapt to thew different styles of James Tomkins and James Collins along the way.

Tuesday’s display was back to the standard that the Hammers set earlier in the campaign and Reid insisted that the defeat at Reading was a mere blip.

“We all knew that the first half at Reading wasn’t good enough,” he said. “You have football games like that and I think generally we haven’t had too many of them – we have played pretty well.

“We have just been lacking in scoring goals lately, but luckily we scored two to get back on track.”

With Reid at the heart of the team, they are likely to stay on the right track. He must be the current favourite to be Hammer of the Year!