Paolo: Problems Mount

Paolo Di Canio insists that the last thing on his mind is what his critics think about him missing out on the upcoming trips to Middlesbrough and Manchester United - while Glenn Roeder says that "there are not enough hours in the day" to deal with the problems he faces at the moment.

Paolo was distraught after the game on Monday night, not only because of the defeat, but because of the realisation that he has picked up a problematic knee injury in West Ham's hour of need.

He has recently exposed - with statistics to back him up - scurrilous suggestions that he has missed a disproportionate number of games in the north as being lies, and he says he does not want to hear any more on the subject.

"With all the problems I have you can imagine whether or not I will be thinking about stupid people with no brains writing rubbish," he shrugs.

"I have many problems - with my knee, and thinking about another defeat - so I have no time or strength to think about this."

Paolo, who had an 5:30 start to his day as he flew to Italy with Ges Steinbergs to get a second opinion on whether he will need an operation or not, acknowledges that there was plenty of effort against Southampton but adds:

"We tried, though the problem in this situation is you can try how you want - but we need a win.

"Now is the moment to get a win in any manner and when you lose you can't think how you try, only about the fact that you lost the game.

"For us, the club, all the supporters, for Glenn, that is what I am thinking of.

"It is very cruel because we had three clear chances against Southampton but again we are speaking about our performance, and we should have scored in the first half.

"We didn't - and then got punished for it."

And Glenn agrees:

"That match took the biscuit; last year we could have put in a performance that wasn't as good as that and won the game.

"I am absolutely certain we would have been winning these sort of games last year, comfortably.

"When I went down the tunnel at the end of the match I felt we had been mugged, we'd allowed ourselves to be pick pocketed - and it wasn't exactly a pretty goal that won the game for them."

Glenn knows only too well that you can play well and lose; Opta statistics for the last half a dozen or so games have shown that West Ham have had plenty more possession - even against Manchester United recently.

He adds:

"We did not play panic football, as a lot of teams do when they are at the bottom, knocking it long from the back to the front.

"Generally speaking, we were quite safe, and in the first half you could see how well we were playing.

"A crescendo was building up, we were creating good chances, but you have to take them - and we didn't.

"We let it slip through our fingers as we did against Aston Villa, which was never a 4-1 performance.

"We were well up for the game and showed lots of courage and motivation; that is not always easy for a side in our position, but the players showed they wanted to play for the club and for me.

"But then they delivered the knockout punch in injury time."

With the news that Paolo Di Canio may face an extended lay off, not to mention the fact that fredi Kanoute and Don Hutchison are still not fit, these are, as Glenn concedes, "very tough times."

"There are not enough hours in the day," he admits, "and I don't think anyone on the staff had much sleep after the Southampton game - and I don't suppose our supporters did, either.

"I watched the whole game again from around 2:30 a.m. and was there for a warm down with the players the next morning.

"A manager recently said 'does confidence breed results or do results breed confidence?'

"I agree with him that it doesn't matter how you get results, you need them to get confidence - and the most important thing now is to achieve results."