Christian Dailly says that Hammers will simply have to roll
their sleeves up and work even harder after slipping to a third
defeat on the spin at Manchester City on Saturday.
The Scottish international defender made his first start of the campaign against Stuart Pearce's men at the City of Manchester stadium - filling in at right-back for the injured Tyrone Mears - but was forced to switch to centre-half when Anton Ferdinand limped off with a hamstring injury just 20 minutes in, and admitted that the injury blow summed up our day.
"It was a disappointing afternoon and things just don't seem to be going for us at the moment," said the 32-year-old after a second half double from Georgios Samaras inflicted a 2-0 loss on Alan Pardew's team.
""Losing Anton early on was a big blow but I thought we coped as well as we could with that. It was a bit like a few of the other games this season - we didn't play terribly, but we just didn't do enough to win the game.
"Manchester City just did that little bit more in terms of getting forward and creating chances, but it just didn't happen for us at the other end, and it was disappointing that we couldn't find a breakthrough.
"The first goal in a match like that was always going to be vital and it looked as though we might be heading for a 0-0 draw until Samaras popped up with that great strike."
Hammers will now hope to get back to winning ways in our UEFA Cup first round, second leg clash in Palermo on Thursday, with a margin of victory that will hopefully see us through to the group stage of the competition, and Christian insists that the team will be doing everything they can to brighten the atmosphere at Upton Park.
"We've been working hard on the training pitch in the last week or so to try and get things back on track, and that really is the only option we have - to dig in and work as hard as possible to start winning games again," he says.
"The quality is there, we have no doubt about that, and the boys have upped the work-rate on the training field, so hopefully that will start to show soon.
"We've just got to make sure we keep the right mentality and not lose sight of what we are capable of, because it will come good for us if we stay focused.
"In all honesty, we haven't done a lot wrong in the past couple of weeks. Teams are giving us a lot more respect this season and getting more men behind the ball, and we have found it harder to break opponents down.
"We could do with a bit of luck to get the ball rolling for us, but you've got to earn that luck, and the only way we'll get it is by rolling our sleeves up and working hard."
The Scottish international defender made his first start of the campaign against Stuart Pearce's men at the City of Manchester stadium - filling in at right-back for the injured Tyrone Mears - but was forced to switch to centre-half when Anton Ferdinand limped off with a hamstring injury just 20 minutes in, and admitted that the injury blow summed up our day.
"It was a disappointing afternoon and things just don't seem to be going for us at the moment," said the 32-year-old after a second half double from Georgios Samaras inflicted a 2-0 loss on Alan Pardew's team.
""Losing Anton early on was a big blow but I thought we coped as well as we could with that. It was a bit like a few of the other games this season - we didn't play terribly, but we just didn't do enough to win the game.
"Manchester City just did that little bit more in terms of getting forward and creating chances, but it just didn't happen for us at the other end, and it was disappointing that we couldn't find a breakthrough.
"The first goal in a match like that was always going to be vital and it looked as though we might be heading for a 0-0 draw until Samaras popped up with that great strike."
Hammers will now hope to get back to winning ways in our UEFA Cup first round, second leg clash in Palermo on Thursday, with a margin of victory that will hopefully see us through to the group stage of the competition, and Christian insists that the team will be doing everything they can to brighten the atmosphere at Upton Park.
"We've been working hard on the training pitch in the last week or so to try and get things back on track, and that really is the only option we have - to dig in and work as hard as possible to start winning games again," he says.
"The quality is there, we have no doubt about that, and the boys have upped the work-rate on the training field, so hopefully that will start to show soon.
"We've just got to make sure we keep the right mentality and not lose sight of what we are capable of, because it will come good for us if we stay focused.
"In all honesty, we haven't done a lot wrong in the past couple of weeks. Teams are giving us a lot more respect this season and getting more men behind the ball, and we have found it harder to break opponents down.
"We could do with a bit of luck to get the ball rolling for us, but you've got to earn that luck, and the only way we'll get it is by rolling our sleeves up and working hard."