Avram Grant has held his pre-match press conference ahead of Saturday's Barclays Premier League trip to West Bromwich Albion.
The West Ham United manager spoke about his high hopes for the return of Thomas Hitzlsperger, the departure of Roberto di Matteo and the importance of claiming a victory that could lift the Hammers out of the bottom three.
Avram on team news…
"A few of them are sleeping this afternoon but the reports are that everybody is OK after international duty.
"Thomas Hitzlsperger played for 60 minutes on Wednesday and he is looking good. I think he will be available for us very soon. I think Saturday is too soon but it depends on how the player feels. We will look on Friday in training and then we will take a decision.
"He was maybe our best player in the training camp until he was injured four days before the season started. He gave us something that I think we needed this season - a lot of intelligence in the game, he is a hard worker and he passes the ball forward very quickly.
"He did this very well. We didn't lose a single game in pre-season. We won a lot of games and he was responsible for more than 50 per cent of the goals.
"He was good for us but unfortunately he got injured - one of many this season. I hope he will come back in the same form. It will take some time but I hope it will be sooner."
Avram on West Bromwich Albion…
"You never know what is easy or what is a difficult game. Sometimes when you play at home and you think it will be easier and it's not like this, then we went to Blackpool and to Fulham and we won the games that not many teams found easy to play there.
"I think in this league anything can happen. Wolves won against Man United and other teams took points and then you can lose points everywhere.
"What is more important is that we know that last Sunday was something exceptional for us. We have done well against the teams around us - this was the first time we have lost to a team in the last eight in the table except the first game of the season when we didn't know Aston Villa would be there. We want it to be the only time."
Avram on Michael Appleton being in caretaker charge on Saturday…
"It will not be easy for us because all the players want to impress the new manager but for us it doesn't matter. We are thinking about us. We know it will be a difficult game but we want to win this game.
Avram on Roberto di Matteo's departure…
"To give the right answer I need to know what happened there, but I only know that he was sacked. I always feel sorry when managers are sacked - especially him because he took a team from the Championship to the Premier League and they started the season very well.
"I think, when there are difficult times, everyone needs to be together, but I don't know what happened there.
"I think it is not the first time and it won't be the last time it happens. I don't feel good about this. If you look at the three teams relegated in the last ten years 90 per cent of them changed their manager and it didn't help. It's always the easy solution but it's not THE solution.
"I think the [clubs] are not prepared to be patient. For me the best two managers in the world are Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger and if they started today, I don't know what would happen to them because nobody has patience.
"When they lost patience, nobody wants to building something and you lose stability. When you want to build a team on good foundations that will serve the team for a long and short time period, nobody will do it because everybody is busy with the next game.
"In the last few years, there have been more loans than at any time in history because everybody is interested in the short-term. I think this is not a good idea and is not a good thing to do."
Avram on a points target…
"We need as many points as we can get. I don't know, but I think the 35 points that was good enough for the last two seasons will not be enough for sure."
Avram on getting out of the bottom three this weekend…
"We spoke about this. We did it two times and took two steps forward and one step back. Also, the results were amazing last Saturday as they were two weekends before. We have had two bad weekends and one good weekend and we hope this will be a good one for us.
"We know that we need to take points to stay in the league."
Avram on the possibility of moving to the Olympic Stadium…
"I will tell you exactly what it would mean to the club if we move there. I think it can take the club forward and it's in our area and the people in this area deserve it.
"I have said many times that I don't think we want to build a stadium in Chelsea!"