Pardew thinking big

Alan Pardew plans to “make a statement of intent” about West Ham’s ambition to young players such as Anton Ferdinand and Nigel Reo-Coker by making new signings in the transfer window.

Pardew, whose team won 2-1 at Aston Villa today, has forged a strong bond between himself and the likes of Ferdinand and Reo-Coker.

The pair have signed long-term deals with the Hammers, and now the manager wants to show them the club have ambitions of “going forward quickly” by strengthening during the next fortnight.

Pardew was speaking after goals from Bobby Zamora and Marlon Harewood earned victory at Villa, where his team trailed early on to Lee Hendrie’s first-half goal.

“The way our boys keep coming back from a goal down shows how strong our spirit is,” said Pardew.

“The bond is strong between me and the young players.

“We have signed guys on four and five-year contracts, like Nigel and Anton who have grown with me at the club.

“My job in this transfer window is to make a statement of intent to those players.

“I’m trying to push the board to bring a couple of players in to show the young players that this club is going forward quickly.”

Pardew was heartened by today’s three points.

“This was a big win for us, more important for us than Villa. We were disappointed at half-time because the quality had not been there,” he said.

“We knew how to hurt Villa from before and we had not been sticking to our gameplan.

“I wasn’t feeling too clever myself, so I couldn’t really shout at them – but I made the point we had not been good enough. We moved up a gear for 20 minutes in the second half and are hard to deal with when we play like that.”

Villa manager David O’Leary was disappointed with his side’s second-half fade-out as they suffered only their second defeat in 10 matches.

He said: “We showed in the first half what we have been producing in November and December, but in the second period you saw what has happened about 10 times this season.

“We were out-muscled and out-fought and we were not able to defend set-plays. We gifted them two goals and made life very hard for ourselves.

“We are not the sort of side who can just turn up and think we can turn it on at will. We have to be 100% all the time on our game, and that just didn’t happen in the second period.”

Villa midfielder Eirik Bakke suffered a tight hamstring. and O’Leary said: “I had to take him off because I could not afford to risk it getting worse and him being out for six weeks.”