West Ham defender Danny Gabbidon has admitted the defence must tighten up ahead of the visit of Burnley this Saturday.

West Ham defender Danny Gabbidon has admitted the defence must tighten up ahead of the visit of Burnley this Saturday.

The East End club sit just one point and one place above the drop zone, but will be confident of a win against a Clarets side who have only picked up one point from a possible 18 away from Turf Moor this season.

And the Welsh international realises that the back-line must step up to the mark this weekend to contend with wily striker Steven Fletcher and experienced front man Robbie Blake.

"We need to start keeping clean sheets," he said.

"We have had only two all season and I can't really remember the last clean sheet we had, I think it goes back to Blackburn which is quite a few games ago.

"We are scoring goals, especially away from home, and to score three away from home and not win the game is very disappointing from our point of view. The minute we start defending better as a team then that is when the results will start coming."

They will certainly have to make a better fist of it than they did last Saturday against Hull when sloppy defending meant the Hammers walked away from the KC Stadium with just one point, when they probably should have taken all three.

Gabbidon played left back in the game and admitted he was unsure what went wrong in defence.

"I don't know. Even when we were 2-0 up, there were signs where we were making mistakes here and there," he said.

"They got a goal back and that lifted them. They had a little bit of luck with that first goal, they then obviously got the equaliser and then the penalty, so it was just a mad 15 minutes where we didn't make the best decisions individually.

"They got back into the game, the crowd got behind them, they got their noses in front and we did well second half to get something out of it."

It was only the Welshman's second league start this season after a catalogue of calf, back and hip injuries have forced him to watch from the sidelines so he was understandably delighted at playing 90 minutes at Hull.

"I've picked up a few niggles in my calf. I think being out for such a long time you expect the odd niggle here and there, but I felt good out there today," he said.

"I was hoping that I would start the game well because I haven't played for a month or so and I was fairly pleased with the way it went.

"It was nice to get a run-out and just a shame we didn't get the three points, but now we move on to the next game.