West Ham defender says team must learn how not to lose games and play for a point sometimes

George McCartney has insisted that West Ham must bounce back from Tuesday night’s loss at Southampton, when they make another trip to the south coast to face Brighton on Monday.

With that defeat, the Hammers missed out on the chance to go top of the league as well as losing their unbeaten away record.

However, the left back is confident that Sam Allardyce’s men have what it takes to bounce back at the Amex Stadium.

“Games like Tuesday you have to win if you want to win the league,” he said.

“You have to try to pull away from other teams. The longer you hang around third, fourth or fifth place, the harder it gets because games run out.

“We have to put it behind us. We’re all disappointed but we’re all confident of finishing in first or second place come the end of the season.

“You try to go as long into the season not losing away from home or at home. We had good away form before Tuesday night.

“We have another tough game down at Brighton on Monday night and we have to improve, bounce back and get the three points down there.”

McCartney also revealed that he believes the Hammers must learn how not to lose games if they can’t win them, and play to protect a point from a draw.

“I think overall we need to stop losing games and if anything just play for a point if we have to,” he said “We’ve certainly got the players in the team to go out and try and win every game.

“But it’s a tough league and there are a lot of good teams.

“So if we don’t think we’ll win the game we have to try to stay solid as a team and at least take a point.”

Looking ahead, McCartney knows that the Hammers face a few tough tests in the near future against some strong sides.

“I think if you look at the next three or four games they are against teams in the top half of the table,” he said.

“They’re going to be hard matches but we have to believe in ourselves, play with confidence and get a bit of consistent form going where we’re winning or drawing games.

“I’m sure everyone will be working hard on the training pitch to try and put things right and eradicate the mistakes.”