Junior Stanislas believes West Ham United's next five Barclays Premier League fixtures could decide the destiny of the club's season.
The Hammers travel to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday and Fulham on Boxing Day before welcoming Everton and Wolverhampton Wanderers to the Boleyn Ground on 28 December and New Year's Day respectively and heading for Newcastle United on 5 January.
With four of those matches against teams in the bottom half of the table on the agenda, the winger is targeting the victories that have proved so elusive so far this term.
"I think they games we can pick up points from," Stanislas told WHUTV. "We're not going to play Manchester City every week, so we've got a good chance against Blackburn. We'll be fully focused on that and will hopefully get something."
While the No25 is naturally looking forward to future challenges, he also believes West Ham could have done better against big-spending Manchester City at the weekend.
The Hammers went down to a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Roberto Mancini's expensively-assembled side, but Stanislas insisted there was no reason why he and his team-mates could not have secured at least a draw.
With the game still goalless, the England Under-21 player cut inside Jerome Boateng before working Joe Hart with a low drive. The 23rd-minute chance turned out to be West Ham's best of the match.
"They are a good team but when you play against any team, you can get something off them if you play well. Even if they play well, you can nick something but things didn't really go our way.
"We conceded a goal that, personally, I think we could have stopped. I don't think we did too badly. We just got caught on the break one or two times.
"Obviously everyone is disappointed to lose because, even though they are a good team, we thought we could get something out of them."
For Stanislas himself, the disappointment of defeat was tempered by the joy of making just his fifth first-team appearance of the season - two of which have come in the Carling Cup.
Having featured in three of the club's last four matches in all competitions, the 21-year-old is keen to be involved again at Ewood Park.
"For me personally, just playing is the main thing. I've played and I know I can always do better, so I'll be working hard in the week so I play next week."