Pards Warns Against Wigan Revenge

ALAN Pardew has warned his Hammers team that Wigan could be out for revenge at the JJB Stadium on Saturday, after a late West Ham equaliser denied the Latics a place in the Play-offs last season.

But Pards believes his team have used the Easter break productively and is looking for them to come out fighting, as they face Wigan and Burnley in the space of three days.

"This is a really important period of our season," confessed the Hammers boss, "and we need two big performances at Wigan and Burnley.

"I saw Wigan play Nottingham Forest and they are a very good side. They've got some excellent offensive players and with the two strikers they have a lot of ammunition that we'll need to cope with.

"You can see in the way they play that they are well capable of scoring goals and we're going to have to be resolute at the back and not give anything away.

"It's definitely going to be one of our toughest games of the season. They'll certainly want to do well against us after the match up there last season, when we equalised to deny them a Play-off place. They'll be fuelled by that memory and we've got to deal with that extra determination.

"But we've got plenty to motivate us as well, not least securing a Play-off place over these final eight games. I'm not going to say how many points I think we need, simply because in this League it's so difficult to tell.

"The players know what they've got to do, though, and they need to prove how good they are over the next few weeks."

Never one to shirk his own responsibilities, Alan called for unity throughout the Club as West Ham United look to force their way back into the Play-off zone. And he reiterated that the staff and players are working as hard as they can to bring the success everyone connected with the Club so desperately wants.

"It's very important that everyone remains strong at a time like this," he emphasised, "and focuses on what we are trying to achieve. My job is to make West Ham United a big club again. But it's been a difficult season and right now we're not doing that.

"It's something that we're all working as hard as we can to put right. Hopefully, I've given good, sensible answers to our fans about what we are trying to do and where some things have gone wrong.

"Our ultimate aim is to get the results and the success that our fans want. At the moment, the key is to make the Play-offs and then go from there. We've got eight games left until the end of the season and everyone has got to be pulling in the same drection to achieve the outcome we all want."