Gianfranco Zola has spoken about his determination to get West Ham United going again after the disappointment against Tottenham Hotspur
There is the small matter of a trip to Chelsea to contend with next Sunday but, with just two points between West Ham United and ninth place, the manager has every faith in his team. The last away trip saw a 0-0 draw at leaders Liverpool, so there is optimism for the trip to Stamford Bridge. "It is not an easy situation, we know that, but in football you never know," he said.
"We are going to be working even harder than we are doing and we are trying to improve the situation. We won't panic, we have faith in ourselves and we will carry on working. [Against Tottenham] it was important for us to score first because we knew the game was going to be close.
"I understand it must be disappointing for the fans because that was a big game for them as well. The players gave everything and so what can I say? I do understand the frustration - we gave everything we had to make them happy and unfortunately it didn't work. It was a game everybody wanted to win and it was disappointing."
In the 2-0 loss, the manager believed his team were denied a penalty when Carlton Cole's goalbound header was handled while there was also a disallowed goal when the ball went into the Spurs net via Jermaine Jenas in the first half. The teams are now level on 18 points, along with Manchester City, while Newcastle United are two points behind - emphasising the closeness of the league standings.
But for a Heurelho Gomes double save at the death from Lucas Neill and David Di Michele that so nearly cancelled out Ledley King's opener, it would have been honours even. As it was Jamie O'Hara broke away to score a second. "The last ten minutes I took a gamble. I put another striker on. I knew I was going to risk something. We had the opportunity, we didn't score and they came down and scored."
Goals have proved hard to come by in recent weeks but Zola will be working hard to put that right. "We tried to come back, we had the opportunities to come back but we just didn't take them. We will try to get more goals. We are going to be working on the strikers' confidence and trying to do something.
"We need to put it right because that is what we need. We knew we were conceding too much and we got to the point where we are not conceding too many goals but now we have to improve on scoring. We are going to be working on that to find the right solution."