- Aaron Cresswell says the Hammers cannot wait to get back on the pitch at Hull City
- West Ham United go to KCOM Stadium on a five-match Premier League winless streak
- Left-back says the players are 'fully supportive' of manager Slaven Bilic
Aaron Cresswell says West Ham United are champing at the bit to get a win at Hull City for themselves, the Claret and Blue Army and manager Slaven Bilic.
The Hammers have had the spotlight fall on them following a run of five winless Premier League matches, and left-back Cresswell admits their standards have not been high enough in those games.
But, after working hard through the two-week international break, the No3 says the players are determined to dial up three points at the KCOM Stadium on Saturday.
“It’s not good to have a few defeats, of course, so we want to turn that around as quickly as possible,” he began. “We’ve had a two-week gap when we would rather have had a game the next day [after the home defeat by Leicester City on 18 March], so we’re looking forward to Hull and hopefully we’ll get three points.
“When we haven’t been picking up results, as has been the case of late, we always want a game quickly to put things right. We’ve had to wait two weeks, but now Hull is coming up on Saturday and we want to put in a performance and, first and foremost, get the win.
“We know we haven’t been good enough as of late and we want to rectify that and we’ve got a couple of games we want to get maximum points out of and close the gap on the teams above us.
“Every game is tough in the Premier League, whether it’s the start or the end of the season. Going to Hull is not going to be easy and they’ve picked up a lot of points under their new manager, who has been fantastic.”
Slaven is bubbly around the place and wants to stay in a positive mood and, as players, that’s what we want
Aaron Cresswell
As is the way with modern football, a short run of indifferent results has led to media speculation over the future of the manager.
However, with West Ham one win away from climbing back into the Premier League’s top ten, Cresswell was quick to point to the qualities of the former Croatia, Lokomotiv and Besiktas boss, while also pointing to the outstanding campaign Bilic oversaw just a season ago
“If you ask any of the players, they would say the same, we are fully behind Slaven and fully supportive of him. Hopefully we can turn it around, get back up the league and take that pressure off everyone,” the defender confirmed.
“He’s been brilliant with me since he walked in, he’s been fantastic. He is first-class with the lads, training is good and he’s got a good coaching staff around him and we don’t want that to change.
“He is hands-on, positive and passionate about his job. As players, that’s what you want from a manager, someone who is on the training pitch every day giving his advice. He’s a very good manager and we’re all behind him.
“He’s both a very good manager and a very good coach. His management skills are spot-on and his tactical acumen and coaching sessions are very good. He is bubbly around the place and wants to stay in a positive mood and, as players, that’s what we want.
“Slaven has definitely been very positive since he walked through the door. Looking back to last year, it was the highest points tally the club has achieved in the Premier League. We finished on 62 points last season and in seventh place, so you could arguably say we overachieved, but we’ve got nine games to go and we want to get as high up that table as we can.”