'Results will take care of themselves'

There were just eight minutes of the 90 remaining in West Ham United's Premier League meeting with Manchester United at the Boleyn Ground on 29 December 2007 and the scoreline was locked at 1-1.

Five minutes earlier, Anton Ferdinand had equalised Cristiano Ronaldo's opening goal, turning the stadium into a cauldron of noise.

Patrice Evra conceded a right-wing free-kick and when Mark Noble curled the ball into the penalty area, Matthew Upson soared to head the ball high past goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak and send east London into a collective state of euphoria.

Three-and-a-quarter years later, Upson is taking aim at the Barclays Premier League champions again ahead of the Red Devils' visit on Saturday 2 April.

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"At the moment, I think we're on a good run and, whatever game gets thrown at us, we'll go out there and give a good performance," the No15 told West Ham TV. "That's the key. I think we need to stop worrying about results.

"Obviously results are the most important thing but the performances will dictate the results and if we just focus on supporting each other, working hard for each other and keeping the spirit high, I think the results will take care of themselves.

"There is absolutely no reason why we can't go out there and get amongst them. It's our home patch, we can raise the tempo of the game and be physical as much as we can and try to take some points from the game."

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Upson's confidence is drawn from a run of one defeat in seven league matches and recording back-to-back clean sheets for the first time in 13 months.

The second of those clean sheets came in Saturday's resilient goal-less draw at Tottenham Hotspur - a result that took West Ham out of the relegation zone.

"I'm definitely pleased with another clean sheet. To go to Tottenham on Saturday against a really strong attacking force, I thought we set out well from the start and soaked up a lot of pressure, to be honest. We coped well and a couple of good individual performances saw us over the line.

"These last three [league] results have been massive confidence boosters. The group has come a long way, not only in terms of results but our performances have been good and we've been more of a threat.

"I thought, in the first half, that we soaked up a lot of pressure but also created a couple of chances that, on another day, we might have scored.

"We did hang on in there in the second half a little bit, but that was always going to be the case at somewhere like Tottenham. We felt we deserved a point."

While Upson was one of a number of heroes in a claret and blue shirt, left-back Wayne Bridge was particularly outstanding, repelling the threat of the jet-heeled Aaron Lennon and Gareth Bale with a defensive display full of experience, pace and tactical know-how.

Behind the pair of them, goalkeeper Robert Green also proved his international class, making two breath-taking saves to deny former Hammer Jermain Defoe and push man-of-the-moment Bale's free-kick onto the crossbar.

The duo drew deserved praise from captain Upson.

"It was obvious that Wayne just needed games. He'd been out of the thick of it for quite a long time and had some injuries, so he was slow starting like you'd expect. He's got into his stride and he's showing just what a class player he is.

"Greeny made a couple of outstanding saves. His one from the free-kick - I don't know how he's got there. To get enough of a hand on the ball to divert it on to the bar was just fantastic."