Green focused on Blackburn encounter

With next week's programme of key international fixtures coming up, Rob Green could be forgiven for eyeing a return to the England fold. But the West Ham United stopper is more concerned with keeping the Hammers in contention for Premiership survival - starting with Saturday's trip to Blackburn.

"I'm not really thinking about England at all," he said. "Hopefully I'll put in a good performance against Blackburn or, better still, I'll have nothing to do and we'll win 3-0 or more. But we're going away to a Premiership club who are on a good run of form and that always means having our work cut out.

"With England it's out of my hands and I'm not really looking to get a recall. We've got good keepers playing, who are in front of me at the moment, and I'm not really worrying about it. I'm just worrying about playing well for West Ham and helping us in the situation we're in."

Despite making a series of excellent saves against Tottenham in the Hammers' last Premiership encounter, Rob was left disappointed by the 4-3 defeat.

"We played well as a team," he said. "I don't think anybody could be faulted effort-wise, but maybe there were too many individual errors. We had the chances to win it but after going in the lead we gave away soft goals and gave them the lifeline they needed, particularly after half-time.

"That was a disappointing game but it's shown what we can do and it's also highlighted what we need to do for every game for the remainder of this season. Come this Saturday we'll have an opportunity to put it right."

And Rob believes the way to put things right is to remain positive and travel up to Blackburn with confidence.

"We can take heart from our last performance," he said. "Not getting any points from the game and playing like that is hugely disappointing but it shows that we can do it and it gives us the impetus to get it right against Blackburn. If we go in and work as hard as we did against Spurs then it really gives us a good chance.

"We've got to be positive. You're not going to improve or go out there any more determined if you're feeling sorry for yourself. We've got ourselves in the position we're in and we're the only ones who can get ourselves out of it.

"It's a big ask but I don't think it's one that's beyond us. It can go two ways; we can go back into our shells and hide or we can stand up and be counted. We can give great accounts of ourselves in the next games, go out and win and perform. Then we'll give ourselves a chance of pulling off something great."