Sir Trevor Brooking looks ahead to Saturday's visit of Sunderland...
Sunderland have opted for a change at the top ahead of this weekend’s game against the Hammers, with Dick Advocaat coming in to replace Gus Poyet as manager.
However, more than anything, the West Ham team have got to focus on their own performance and try to get that important win that they’ve been looking for over the last couple of months.
After such a great period up until Christmas, it will be frustrating for them especially with a few injuries that they’ve had.
With Sunderland next up, it’s one of those games that everyone expects you to win. We’ve all been there, but you know Sunderland’s players will be fired up because they have pride.
Away from home sometimes the pressure’s off and you can make it really tough. If you look at the previous record, they haven’t scored a lot of goals but they haven’t conceded many.
They’ll make it difficult to score, try to frustrate the team and the fans. More than anything it’s about West Ham matching their effort, which I think will be there because they are only one point off the bottom three.
West Ham will have to make sure their level is good to get the three points because again after that there’s not a game for a couple of weeks.
You don’t want to be brooding over that time with a disappointing performance. There were spells in the Arsenal game where we did ok. 3-0 looks comfortable, but on Saturday we have to make sure Sunderland don’t get something to cling on to early in the game.
Sir Trevor Brooking was talking on Hammer Time, whufc.com's exclusive panel discussion show. Look out for episode two, which features Sir Trevor, Mark Noble and Evening Standard correspondent Ken Dyer, appearing on the Official Site on Wednesday