West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce has spoken of the need for his side to keep a clean sheet on Saturday afternoon against Brighton and Hove Albion.
In recent weeks, West Ham's issues in front of goal have disappeared with the Hammers scoring eleven goals in their last four matches. Unfortunately, this has coincided with a lapse in concentration at the back that has allowed Reading to score four goals and Birmingham to score three. Allardyce is keen to get both ends of the pitch right ahead of Saturday's huge game at the Boleyn Ground.
"The strikers have started performing for us again," Big Sam said. "Vaz has come in and scored some important goals for us as has Nicky Maynard. Carlton Cole has started scoring again and Kevin Nolan has been popping up with important goals all season.
"Now we have started being clinical in front of goal, we need to make sure our defence at home is water tight and that way we can ensure we win the game."
The Hammers manager also spoke of the pressure the players face now as the season draws to a close and urged his team not to look at other team's results and focus only on putting in excellent performances to get all three points.
"We need to forget about other teams results and concentrate solely on our own performance on Saturday. We have to use the pressure as a positive and use it to bring the best out of us. The best performances should come under the biggest pressure; just recently we've had the performances but not the result.
"We totally dominated that second half against Birmingham and that's what we need to continue on Saturday. On Monday there were a lot of chances, a lot of good play a lot of energy given in the second half and if we do that for 90 minutes on Saturday then we won't be far away from gaining three valuable points."
Tickets for today's game can be bought on the door. For more details. Click here.