Collison confident

Jack Collison said the West Ham United players will go into Saturday's big match with champions Manchester United full of confidence after just one defeat in six.

The Wales midfielder has been key to the improvement in fortune for Gianfranco Zola's men following his return to the side, having registered on the scoresheet in each of the last two games.

"As a footballer, playing in the big games is something you really look forward to," Collison said. "Especially for me, I'm a young player playing in the Premier League and the home games against Manchester United and Chelsea are massive for someone like me.

"We don't go into any game thinking we're going to lose, we go out there trying to get a result and do the best we can."

Collison is adamant he and his team-mates have learnt their lessons following the last two, dramatic games. After a 3-3 draw at Hull City, the Hammers beat Burnley 5-3 last time out, enduring a slightly nervier ending than they would have liked in the latter contest.

"It wasn't the prettiest at times but it was three massive points for us but that is what we needed. It would have been nice to score ten but we're disappointed at letting the game slip away from them at the end.

"It's something we're trying to work on and the manager came in afterwards, still disappointed even though we won the game as there's things we need to work on. We appreciated that, we know we can do that and we have to take the positives and it's three points at a time when we need them."

After a week of intense training in sometimes extremely wet weather, Collison feels the squad are focused on ensuring there will be no repeats against the champions.

"It's been disappointing over the last few weeks when we've got leads and we've let leads slip but it's something we're working on in training and we're trying hard to improve every week. We're not going to be down, we're going to take the positives and we scored five good goals."

The visit of the Red Devils to the Boleyn Ground marks the start of the run up to the busy festive period, when Collison knows some positive results are integral to the Hammers celebrating a happy New Year.

"We're scoring a lot of goals at the moment and that's one of the positives we can take. We've got some massive games coming up between now and Christmas and maybe we can re-assess then.

"But hopefully we can get a few points so we're looking forward rather than behind us. We're aware of the situation we're in and we're trying hard to improve the situation."