West Ham United's young players will have benefitted from facing Sol Campbell in their defeat to Arsenal reserves, says coach Alex Dyer.

Dyer believes his players - in particular forwards Freddie Sears and Cristian Montano - would also take something positive from the experience of coming up against Campbell.

The 35-year-old turned out for former club Arsenal with the view to signing a short-term deal with Arsene Wenger's side, and showed glimpses of his international class with an assured 45-minute display.

Dyer told whufc.com: "When good players come to play at West Ham it inspires the lads. Sol Campbell is a name and has had a great career. He's gone back to where it all started [in the reserves] and it made my teamtalk easy before the game. I told them there would be a lot of people and media there and they would be on Sky all day so they should go out and give a good account of themselves, which they certainly did do.

"In the second half they worked very hard and I'm disappointed for them that they didn't come out of the game with at least a point."