Curbishley: it's payback time

  • by Staff Writer
  • Wednesday, 5th March 2008

Alan Curbishley is in a positive frame of mind ahead of tonight's Premier League clash with Anfield.

The Hammers - fresh from a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Chelsea last weekend - need to pick something up from tonight's game against Liverpool if European aspirations are to be maintained.

Despite West Ham's appalling record on the red side of Stanley Park, Curbishley feels that his side are capable of breaking the jinx - and says that his players owe a good performance to the supporters who were left stunned by Saturday's spineless display.

"We go up there a bit embarrassed about the weekend," said Curbishley in the pre-match press conference. "We understand the fans disappointment entirely and we've got to try and repay all the ones that came to watch us and all those who are going up to Anfield.

"We spoke about it yesterday with the players; if you give them sort of quality players that amount of time on the ball then you are going to get punished - and we got punished.

"But the great thing is that another game is coming up. It's a tough one but the great thing about football is that the next game comes along and you can try and compete and win it. Even when we were having that terrible time last year we looked forward to the next one where you can change your fortunes around.

"We knew we were going into a tough week. We've started off extremely badly and can we improve on that Wednesday - because we've got to really. We're going to a top team and we've got to get back to where we were."

The Hammers are currently tenth in the Premier League - a safe eight points ahead of eleventh-placed Tottenham, but four points behind ninth-placed Blackburn albeit with a game in hand.

With sixth place likely to be the lowest position for a UEFA Cup qualifier the Hammers have to somehow eradicate an eight point margin - and Curbishley says that must start with a result tonight.

"We're still only a couple of points off Portsmouth who have had a great season, but we just can't seem to catch Portsmouth and Blackburn at the moment," he added. "So to do that we've got to win some games and I should imagine the next three or four weeks will decide where we go.

"I'm hoping one or two will come back to give us more impetus. We had a great run in last year which conincided with keeping a settled team. I know I said that we do need to win the majoirt of our games if we're to challenge these teams above us - and if we don't, we'll stay where we are.

"There's so many different permutations; I finished seventh with Charlton and didn't get in. If we lose [against Liverpool] it may finish us off in terms of Europe - but our aim is to finish as high as we can.

"We're in no-mans-land a bit at the moment and we need to get some results to change that. We know we've got to pick some wins up just to stay in there with a shout. I've won there with Charlton on a few occasions but I don't think that many people have got good records against the top four teams.

"But we go into it with a bit of determination after what happened to us at the weekend."

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