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West Ham begin their challenge for the FA Youth Cup with a third round tie against Southend United at Upton Park.

A Southend team containing several 16-year-old's beat Cambridge 3-0 at Roots Hall on Tuesday night to secure a tie with the Hammers. Tony Fowles of the Ironworks Gazette spoke with youth team manager Tony Carr about the game.

Tony - the FA Youth Cup, we’re drawn against Southend in the third round. I know that you and Peter [Brabrook] were at Roots Hall the other night, any thoughts on the opposition?
"Southend beat Cambridge 3-0, quite an accomplished performance I thought. Southend did very well and they were most definitely the better side. Even though Cambridge had their moments I thought that overall Southend deserved to win. In the end it was comprehensive, so we'll look forward to the tie which I believe is next Tuesday, although nothing is confirmed. I spoke to David Webb last night and he wasn’t too sure if that would be suitable.”

We’ll know by the weekend?
“Hopefully we’ll know in the next couple of days I would have thought but we will certainly know by the weekend.”

Southend will know a lot about us after playing them so many times in friendly games?
“Yes, that’s right.”

It’ll make a change not to play them behind closed doors?
“That’s right. II think that it’ll be a tough game for us, I think that whoever scores the first goal in the tie will be vital, but we have to be confident and like every match that you go into you’ve got to be confident that you can get a result and get a win, and that’s what we’ll be doing.”

And if you can get a win the under-19 game against Palace on Saturday that’s got to help the confidence as well, hasn’t it?
“I think so. You can see our results are a bit up and down, our home form is quite good but our away form is quite patchy to say the least. I cant put my finger on it at the moment although I would say that this year we have had to change the side a lot more often than we have ever done before over the last few years - but that’s no excuse.”

Looking at the Crystal Palace team, there’s a lad called Richard Howells - is that the same Richard Howells who was here as a schoolboy?
“Yes, it’s the same boy. A good honest lad who works hard, and I’m looking forward to playing against him. I’m sure that he’s doing very very well there and I have noticed that he has been on the bench for their first team a couple of times, so the boy is obviously doing very well. Good luck to him.”

And it’s starting to become obvious that you will be without Jermain Defoe for this round?
“That’s a shame although we might get him back for the later rounds if we get that far, but we’ve got to get that far first.”

And Glen Johnson? Is he out for this round?
“No, he should be okay. We’re aware that he has a problem with his groin but with the FA Youth Cup in mind we have been resting him and given this game priority for him to come back from injury. We’ve been resting him and nursing him so that we can get him fit for this game, so he may miss out on Saturday against Palace, but looking at the bigger picture I think that the Youth Cup is a more important game than Palace on Saturday.”

So is the FA Youth Cup the one that you think that we can do something in this year?
“I think that with the League you can always catch up, but if we lose on Tuesday there’s no way back, so you only get one chance.”

So Southend will come full of confidence wont they?
“Southend will be very confident, they will come as the giant killers; the little team against the big team. It’s the old cliché but it's still eleven young lads against eleven young lads, and anything can happen on the night. We’ve just got to go out there and be positive, confident and go out there and do the job.”

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