Anton Ferdinand has fond memories of his last visit to
White Hart Lane but is still hoping to go one better when he
returns there on Sunday.
The Hammers defender scored his first Premiership goal in spectacular fashion with a last-minute header at the home of Tottenham Hotspur last season, to ensure that Hammers earned a share of the spoils against their arch-rivals from north London, and insists he will be going all out to make it a winner this time around.
"I've got really good memories of that game," says the England under-21 star. "Getting such an important goal for my first Premiership one, the equaliser against our biggest rivals in the last minute of play, was just great. Hopefully I can repeat it on Sunday and this time it can be the winner."
Going into last year's match at The Lane as Premiership new boys, an away draw was enough to keep the Hammers fans happy. This year, however, on the back of six successive defeats, the claret and blue faithful will be desperately hoping for more than just a point.
"There is more pressure this time round of course," says Anton. "There would have been whether results had been good or bad, because it is Tottenham, but I like to turn pressure from a negative into a positive and use it to bring the best out of me. Hopefully it will do the same for the other lads as well."
Hammers may have gone four league games without finding the back of the net but the young Hammers defender believes if the team can just get a bit of fortune in front of goal, things will turn quickly.
"I think we need a bit of luck to be honest, just for the ball to go in off someone's shin or something, because I think that would give us the confidence to go and score even more. We have got some really good strikers in this team and we all have confidence in them to start scoring again."
Clean sheets are also a problem the other end but Anton assures the fans it is something the defenders have been working hard on the training pitch to rectify.
"We have been working hard to put that right because no defender wants to be conceding goals every match," he says. "It is also about winning games and scoring goals at the other end as well, so we have been working hard to improve all areas of the team and hopefully that will show in the game on Sunday.
"It will be very evenly matched as both teams are hungry for the points," adds Anton, "but it's one we need to win as we must get our season kick-started now. Plus, for me personally, growing up at the Club I know that this is such a big game for the fans, so if we don't win this one I will really take it heart. It is just so important to me personally that we get nothing but a win.
You would not expect teams such as Tottenham and ourselves to be in the position we are in, but we are both where we are and the table doesn't lie, it reflects the results which need to change.
"I don't really care about them, though, we just have to work hard and fight our way up the table. We had a bad patch in the season last year which was our Christmas period and it was the only one we had and we fought our way out of it so hopefully this will be the only one we have this year and we will go onwards and upwards from Sunday."
By Miranda Nagalingam
The Hammers defender scored his first Premiership goal in spectacular fashion with a last-minute header at the home of Tottenham Hotspur last season, to ensure that Hammers earned a share of the spoils against their arch-rivals from north London, and insists he will be going all out to make it a winner this time around.
"I've got really good memories of that game," says the England under-21 star. "Getting such an important goal for my first Premiership one, the equaliser against our biggest rivals in the last minute of play, was just great. Hopefully I can repeat it on Sunday and this time it can be the winner."
Going into last year's match at The Lane as Premiership new boys, an away draw was enough to keep the Hammers fans happy. This year, however, on the back of six successive defeats, the claret and blue faithful will be desperately hoping for more than just a point.
"There is more pressure this time round of course," says Anton. "There would have been whether results had been good or bad, because it is Tottenham, but I like to turn pressure from a negative into a positive and use it to bring the best out of me. Hopefully it will do the same for the other lads as well."
Hammers may have gone four league games without finding the back of the net but the young Hammers defender believes if the team can just get a bit of fortune in front of goal, things will turn quickly.
"I think we need a bit of luck to be honest, just for the ball to go in off someone's shin or something, because I think that would give us the confidence to go and score even more. We have got some really good strikers in this team and we all have confidence in them to start scoring again."
Clean sheets are also a problem the other end but Anton assures the fans it is something the defenders have been working hard on the training pitch to rectify.
"We have been working hard to put that right because no defender wants to be conceding goals every match," he says. "It is also about winning games and scoring goals at the other end as well, so we have been working hard to improve all areas of the team and hopefully that will show in the game on Sunday.
"It will be very evenly matched as both teams are hungry for the points," adds Anton, "but it's one we need to win as we must get our season kick-started now. Plus, for me personally, growing up at the Club I know that this is such a big game for the fans, so if we don't win this one I will really take it heart. It is just so important to me personally that we get nothing but a win.
You would not expect teams such as Tottenham and ourselves to be in the position we are in, but we are both where we are and the table doesn't lie, it reflects the results which need to change.
"I don't really care about them, though, we just have to work hard and fight our way up the table. We had a bad patch in the season last year which was our Christmas period and it was the only one we had and we fought our way out of it so hopefully this will be the only one we have this year and we will go onwards and upwards from Sunday."
By Miranda Nagalingam