Nuno Espirito Santo spoke about the next challenge for West Ham in their bid for survival.
The Irons are in 17th position in the Premier League, sitting two points above Tottenham Hotspur after they smashed four past Wolves last Friday and Spurs lost 1-0 against Sunderland on Sunday.
‘Our preparation doesn’t change’
The outgoing Oliver Glasner takes charge of Crystal Palace, their next opponents, and Espirito Santo is sending out his players with the task of building on the momentum of recent weeks.
“This week has been good. We’re working hard, the atmosphere is good and we’re focused and getting ready for Monday.
“I don’t think there is a risk of complacency [after our win over Wolves]. It’s positive after a good performance. It helps in terms of preparation. We’ll make sure we’re focused on what we have to do.
“Our preparation doesn’t change [because we are playing last]. We have only to focus on ourselves. We cannot control what happens at the other stadiums, so I don’t see a big difference in that.
“The players will decide what they have to do [with regard to watching our rivals’ matches over the weekend]. It’s the moment that they will be at home so if they want to see the matches, OK, but the message is clear – we have to focus on Monday against Palace as that’s important for us.
“It’s much better [to see us out of the relegation zone] when you see you made a big effort to improve the situation, but nothing has changed really. We still have six games to go and a lot of work to do.
“The big challenge we have ahead of us is to sustain our level of performance, which is very hard.
“This is the big challenge, to see if we can go not just in parts of our games, but for 90 minutes. Against Wolves, the first half was not so good then there was much improvement, and in other games we have started very well, so there is always to find a balance. We have a big challenge ahead of us.
“Leadership is a responsibility for all of us. The role is for the team and it’s a responsibility for all of us. What is good for players is to have the boosts of confidence that they get [like Konstantinos Mavropanos and Valentin Castellanos did after scoring twice against Wolves].
“We expect our players to get this boost – Jarrod Bowen, Crysencio Summerville, Taty, Pablo, Callum Wilson. For players who rely on individual aspects, it makes a big, big difference. We expect players to take advantage like Taty and we hope he continues.”
“Palace are a very good team. We watched the Crystal Palace game [against Fiorentina in the UEFA Conference League] on Thursday and it’s always a good moment to analyse and to see.
“We know Palace well and they’re a very good team and very hard to beat. They have an idea with Oliver Glasner for some time that has brought a lot of success for them. We are aware of the difficulties we are going to face, and we know they will be ready to play us on Monday night.
“They are a very good team with a shape and idea and threats from all over the place. They are really established and it brought them a lot of success last season, and they continue to perform well.
“They have individual players who are very talented. That’s credit to them and credit to Oliver to keep them tight and together [after he announced in January that he will be leaving this summer]. You can see by their performances that they’re a very good team.”