Aaron Cresswell says West Ham United cannot afford to allow negative thoughts to enter their heads as they prepare for Saturday’s crunch Premier League fixture at Leicester City.
The Hammers head to the East Midlands eager to secure the three points that should secure their top-flight safety, winning their first Premier League fixture at King Power Stadium at the fourth attempt in the process.
Cresswell, who scored an outstanding goal in the 2-2 draw at the King Power in April 2016, says he and his teammates have put Sunday’s home defeat by champions Manchester City out of their minds and are fully focused on defeating Claude Puel’s side.
The Foxes have themselves picked up just one point from their last four matches, losing 5-0 at Crystal Palace last time out, and have not won at home in the league since 20 January – but the No3 insists the men in Claret and Blue cannot and will not take anything for granted.
We’ve got three games to go and we’re not going to be negative about anything
Aaron Cresswell
“We’ve got to focus on ourselves now,” said West Ham's assist-leader with seven. “We’ve got Leicester this weekend and we need to dust ourselves off, go again, work hard and get ready to face them on Saturday.
“All we can do is have a good week in training and put all our focus on our next game. We need to try and stay as positive as we can and go out there and beat Leicester.
“If you look at Leicester, they lost 5-0 on Saturday, but they had a man sent-off at Crystal Palace on Saturday and it changed the game even more. They are still a good team, but we need to go out there and believe we can beat them.
“It would be nice to get another goal against them, but it’s not about who scores the goals, but all about the result. I couldn’t care less who scores as long as we get the points.
“I couldn’t tell you the points tally we need to get to but we are certainly not safe now. The Premier League is so unpredictable, so any of the teams around us could pick up points between now and the end of the season.
“We’ve got three games to go and we’re not going to be negative about anything. We’re going to stay as positive as we can and concentrate on the job in hand.”