Romanian Rat on his 10th Premier League start

Razvan Rat played 90 minutes in the West Ham defence on Saturday at Cardiff, something of a rare feat when you think about the devastation caused to the Hammers back line this season.

Winston Reid was injured in November and has not been seen since, James Collins and James Tomkins and now Joey O’Brien have all been on the sidelines, while Saturday saw Guy Demel stretchered off as West Ham were again forced to reshuffle.

“I was thinking it was a curse,” said the 32-year-old Romanian who was making his 10th Premier League start at Cardiff.

“Every game we seem to have another injury and it is very strange, as if something is not right, but I don’t know what we can do about it.

“I guess the players that are still fit need to be strong to try and get the results.”

The reshuffled back four of George McCartney at right back, Rat on the left and Tomkins and new boy Roger Johnson in the centre performed admirably under pressure, especially when Tomkins picked up his second yellow card and left them a player short.

“It was very, very hard for us, because again we played with 10 men for the last 30 minutes, but I am happy that we got this very good result and that we are getting better,” said the Romania international captain.

Luck certainly played a part on Saturday with Kim Bo-Kyung’s shot clattering off the underside of the bar and bouncing on the line, but with Andy Carroll also returning to the fold for the first time, the tide may be changing at long last.

“We haven’t had a lot of luck so let us hope that at last it is coming back to us, starting with this win,” said Rat.

“It is great to have Andy Carroll back and he will give us a real boost. He is the main man for us up front and we need him to be fit.”

Rat has been in and out of the West Ham team this season, so what does he think of his own form?

“All the time you can play better,” he admitted. “For the moment it is good that I come back into the starting line-up, that is the main thing for me and I will try and stay there.”

Saturday’s win took the Hammers out of the bottom three, but Rat is still not looking at the league table.

“I don’t think about that,” he insisted. “What we need now is to look for back-to-back wins so we must play well and have a good result against Newcastle.”