West Ham defender believes team must secure more than 40 points in their fight against the drop

James Tomkins believes West Ham can stay in the Premier League, and admits the Hammers must aim for another three wins to ensure their safety.

The young defender is no stranger to a relegation battle, having experienced last season’s dramas with West Ham, but insists he is determined to play his part when Aston Villa visit Upton Park this Saturday.

“Hopefully we can get some revenge on them for the opening day of the season,” he said.

“They are a good team, but we are good too and we know we can beat them.”

The Hammers were well beaten 3-0 last weekend at Bolton and Tomkins admits the team failed to show their true colours.

“It was disappointing for all of us and we didn’t play the way we wanted to in the first half.

“When you go two goals down in quick succession it is a long way to come back.”

However, the 22-year-old is looking forward to putting the Reebok Stadium nightmare behind him and having been selected at right back against Bolton, is ready to play wherever he is needed.

“I’m familiar with the (right back) role as I played there in pre-season.

“Wherever the manager puts me I am happy to play and do my best to do a job for the team.”

Tomkins also revealed that manager Avram Grant is doing his best to keep the squad upbeat.

“He is keeping positive and he told us to forget about the Bolton result,” he said.

“We are fighting a battle now so we have to concentrate on the next game and get three points.”

The England under-21 international believes that the Hammers will need to secure more points than last season if they are to avoid the drop to the Championship, but knows that it will be hard work.

“We have a lot of experience from last year, but it is going to be hard as the teams around us are picking up points.

“I think we need over 40 points to stay in the league, three or four wins will be enough.

“We have to play a couple of hard teams, but I believe that we can beat anyone on our day. We have beaten hard teams this year and I think we can beat them again.

For now though, Tomkins remains focussed on this weekend’s relegation six-pointer.

“We will have to see what happens, we just need to take one game at a time.”