Mediawatch - 9 April

Mediawatch

We look at all the reaction to Saturday's victory over Swansea City in our daily newspapers round-up...

The talk in the match reports was of the sense of relief at London Stadium that Cheikhou Kouyate's goal had brought the team's five-game losing streak to an end, but in the Guardian, Slaven Bilic was quick to say that the Hammers need to kick-on over the final six games of the campaign.

He said: “There’s still work to do. We opened the gap a bit more, but we opened the gap a bit more a few months ago then we lost five in a row. Four more points is the minimum we need. Forty points is normally enough.”

On Sky Sports, the manager said his team needed Cheikhou Kouyate’s magic to see off the challenge of the Swans.

He said: “I congratulate the players, fans, everybody that was in the stadium and we deserved to win today, that is my opinion. We could have killed the game earlier to make it easier for us, we had enough chances, but we did not.

"And then we needed that type of magic and touch of class and quality and Cheikhou scored a brilliant goal. It was a good time of course to go in at half-time with a good result and a good plan for the second half. So it was crucial.”

Skipper Mark Noble, who made his 400th appearance for the Club on Saturday, says on BBC Sport that Saturday’s win was the team’s biggest for a few years.

He explained: "That's our biggest win in a few years. The run we've had, we haven't been good enough but we haven't had the rub of the green either.

"I thought we played well under pressure. Swansea were only a few points behind us. It was so important.

"One more win should see us safe. Hopefully we've broken that run of losses - games we shouldn't have lost. Sunderland away is massive and then we have some tough games."

The win came at a cost, however, as Mark Noble will now serve a two-game suspension after picking up his tenth booking of the season, and Michail Antonio suffered a hamstring injury in the first half at London Stadium, as reported by the Evening Standard.

Away from Saturday's match, The Sun say West Ham have joined Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City and Everton in showing interest in Sunderland keeper Jordan Pickford.