Slaven Bilic says his team can change the course of their season if they perform as they did at Crystal Palace on Saturday.
West Ham United shrugged off their lethargic start to 2016/17 to score a hard-fought 1-0 Premier League victory at Selhurst Park, lifting morale and confidence and rising out of the bottom three.
Much was made of the 3-1-4-2 formation Bilic employed in south London, but the Croatian said it was his side’s attitude rather than tactics which won the day.
While the manager was pleased with three welcome points, he insisted that his players show the same qualities in every game going forward, starting with the visit of Sunderland to London Stadium this weekend.
“The system wasn’t the problem in the last few games,” he began. “For me, it wasn’t about the system, even though I could say now ‘Yes, it was the system!’ but it was more about attitude. It wasn’t that we didn’t want it in the last few games, but it was obvious there was a difference.
“Saturday’s win was all about attitude and focus and hunger and resilience and a determination that we were going to do it and we are going to come back.
“Now we are in a position that we can build on this and we cannot let this opportunity slip away through out own faults. It can happen, as this is football and the opponent can have a brilliant day and you can be unlucky, but we’re going to come at every game like we did on Saturday.
“If I knew why that focus hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have happened four times, it would have happened one time. It’s a chain-reaction.
“The game against Watford was a big shock for us. We were 2-0 up and suddenly we were 4-2 down and then we went to West Brom and were 4-0 down and we were losing a bit of everything, and this league is so cruel that you don’t have to lose a lot and it can go wrong. Hopefully that is over.
“It’s hard to get this across in my press conferences, but I have seen that they care for the team and hate to be in this position. We are still not in the position we want to be, of course, but we were always one win from the opportunity to come out of it.
“We are still there, but this has to be our minimum, with the ball and without the ball. This has to be our minimum.”