Michail Antonio believes the Hammers are on their way.
The brilliant wideman is convinced the club can finish in the top half declaring: “I believe we can achieve something similar to what we achieved last season. We have managed to get out of the bottom three and if you look at the league, we are not far away.”
“I have never known a run where every time someone goes forward they put the ball in the back of the net. Things have not been going our way but it seemed to turn at Palace last Saturday.
“People have spoken about the London Stadium but the facilities are even better and I put it down to bad luck. We want our ability to come through and the results will get even better.
“We need to have a strong mentality and we always believe we can win. It has had nothing to do with us not believing.”
Antonio feels the key to beating Sunderland will be stopping former Hammers forward Jermain Defoe getting on the scoresheet.
He said: “In the Premier League any team can beat anyone on their day because all the teams have quality players. This season things have not gone Sunderland’s way and this is the game where they could turn up.
“But I don’t think that is going to happen and I think we are good enough to come away with all three points. We know that we need to stop Jermain Defoe. He is a prolific goalscorer and if we can stop him, we can hopefully stop Sunderland scoring.”
The ‘brilliant’ wideman had his worst game so far, he didn’t seem to be able to do anything right – he couldn’t pass the ball, couldn’t cross and couldn’t beat anyone, definitely his worse display I’ve seen.
There was definitely something up with him he just didn’t look the same player and was justifiably given the ‘hook’.