Rob: Stay Positive

Rob Lee insists there is certainly no cause for alarm at the five point gap to the top of the table from West Ham's sixth position - and he insists the side can - and will - improve.

"I don't think we are playing badly, but we are not getting the rub of the green," he says.

"Even on Saturday I don't think a lot of the balls were dropping to us; there were a few times when it could have gone our way, there was a big scramble in the box, and they managed to clear it.

"That is what has been happening over the last three or four weeks but it all evens itself out over a season so hopefully we have got a little bit of luck to come.

"On Wednesday I hit the inside of the post, it came out, and went straight into the keeper's hands.

"If it had gone anywhere else with J, Don, and me still in there, it would have been a different story, but it was just one of the numerous occasions when the ball hasn't fallen kindly.

"But we have to keep going and I am certainly not too despondent; people say we have dropped a lot of points but the way I look at it we haven't been losing for five or six games, which is a good run.

"There is no point in being negative; we have started okay and there is still three quarters of the season to go.

"Probably the school report would be 'could do better' which we know we can do - but we are still in there and we are not even playing well yet.

"At this stage the gap doesn't concern me; if we got up to March and it was still there it would probably concern me a lot more.

"It doesn't concern me at all and we haven't lost to any of the top teams at the moment.

"We seem to lose to the teams like the Gillinghams and the Rotherhams - the only two teams we have lost to.

"We are still confident and we know we can win games; I wouldn't say we are going through a bad patch but it is a bit unlucky.

"I think we have deserved to win all the home games but unfortunately it hasn't happened."

He admits that the focus on the away draw non Saturday, and the general disappointment afterwards, is based largely on the fact that it continues a sequence of one-pointers which include home games.

"It was another draw and obviously we are the draw specialists at the moment," he adds.

"It was disappointing especially after we went 1-0 up again and we let a silly goal in.

"The draws away wouldn't be bad results if we won our home games but obviously now it is five in a row.

"If you don't win your home games it puts pressure on your away games; if we had won the three home games a draw at Cardiff away and Coventry away wouldn't have been so bad.

"Their goal was a free goal, really - you can't miss from there and it was poor defending on our part.

"We went ahead and had a lot of the play without creating too many chances.

"But they had, I think, three shots all game and if you restrict the home team to that you'd think you would win the game."

Rob, about whom Alan Pardew has praised for getting through so many games, refuses to use fatigue as a get-out clause for Saturday and he adds:

"There were probably a few tired legs but you can't use that as an excuse; we are professional players and you just have to go out there and do the best that you possibly can.

"Tired limbs maybe but you have to accept that in this league because you are going to have to play a lot of midweek games and a lot of games in a short space of time - we have to be ready for that."