Manuel Pellegrini faced the media ahead of his West Ham United team’s home match with Watford on Saturday.
The Hammers will head to London Stadium on a four-match winning run in the Premier League, but Pellegrini is expecting a stern examination from a Hornets team managed by his former charge Javi Gracia.
Here’s what the boss had to say…
We must aim high
The most important thing is to be in the top six at the end of the season, there are still 21 games to go. We are in a good moment now so we must try to take it game by game and add points.
We understand that around us there are big teams like Everton and Manchester United, teams that are having a good season like Wolves or Watford, so we have just finished the first round but at least after starting with four defeats, it could have been very difficult to be where we are now.
But in the last four games, we have been able to gain places.
Our improvement has not surprised me
I was always confident we would turn things around, because I work with the players every day and you feel that they trust in what you are doing, what you are saying and if you remove those four games, we were a little unlucky to lose against Arsenal, Wolverhampton we lost with a big mistake, but finally we have added points.
Now I think that we need to continue working the same way, that is the reason why we have won these games but we need to keep our feet on the floor, football can change with two or three moments, so we must be very concentrated and continue not thinking that just because we won the last four games that we are going to win five.
Maybe if we continue playing and doing the right things, we have options to win the games.
I think that maybe West Ham is not used to winning four games in a row, but we are talking so many times with the players that we must play with a winning mentality, an ambitious mentality. Now we have the option to do it at home against a good team in Watford and we will try to do it from the first minute.
Javi Gracia is someone I know well
Watford started the season very well, the opposite of us as they won their first four games, after that maybe their results were not so good but they have improved in their last games and maybe they deserved better results.
I know their manager, Javi Gracia, and he is one that wants to play good football and in an attacking style so it will be a tough game.
I don't have too much contact with him but I know him very well but I know him because he was a young player in my team at Villarreal. I know what he thinks about football, what is his style of play, so he is a very good manager.
December is always a key month
I always said before when I was in Manchester that December is a key month for all the teams. You need to play so many games, seven in December and six in January, this is maybe the part of the year that will decide your future in this competition.
So we have started December well. Unfortunately for us we have too many players injured and that we cannot use so in these games we need the whole squad.