Manuel Pellegrini faced the media ahead of his West Ham United team’s Premier League match with Manchester United at London Stadium on Saturday.
The Hammers will be looking to continue their recent improvement and keep a third consecutive clean sheet when they face Jose Mourinho's side.
Here’s what the boss had to say…
We're confident - now all we need is a home league win
We are feeling confident as we prepare to face Manchester United at London Stadium on Saturday.
This is the cause, of course, because our mood is always linked with our results but, I think, in our worst moment when we lost our opening four Premier League matches, I always saw the players working hard and believing in what we are doing.
We improved our results and now we need to win our first game at home in the Premier League on Saturday.
Manchester United issues are not my business
I was asked what I make of the reports of the situation between Jose Mourinho and Paul Pogba.
However, it’s very difficult for me to have an opinion when I don’t really know what’s happening inside their club. Some things the media said are happening within their squad, so I don’t feel able to give an opinion about that.
What I can say is that, in my experience, maybe big names are not so hard to manage because that’s why they are big name players, not only because they have technical or physical qualities but because they are complete person with maturity.
But, of course, players are young and everyone has a different character and the manager must try to reach the best way to have his commitment to your project and every manager has a different way.
As for Jose, I can say he has continued to be a top manager, he’s had a brilliant career and every manager has best or worst moments during the season at every club.
Defensive improvement has not surprised me
I am happy with Issa Diop, but his performances have not come as a surprise to me because I knew him and that’s why he came here. He was also the captain of Toulouse before so he was a very mature player at a very young age.
From the beginning I spoke with him and he played some games, but he needed to know a little bit more about the Premier League.
I was absolutely sure he was going to be a successful player here and the same goes for Fabian Balbuena as he played for the most-important team in Brazil, Corinthians.