West Ham midfielder Jarrod Bowen says retaining English football's Christmas programme "is important".

West Ham welcome Southampton to London Stadium on Boxing Day, before back-to-back away assignments at Watford and Crystal Palace as 2021 turns to 2022.

For Bowen, who notched his fifth goal of the season at Spurs, this would be the ideal time for the east Londoners to hit top form again.

“There's so much to play for this season," he explained. “We're still fifth in the league, even after we've had a bit of a rocky patch recently.

“We've got more points that we had at this stage of the season last year, so there's a lot of football to be played and, looking at the next couple of weeks, we've got three games in the Premier League and games we want to be taking maximum points from.

“We've been disappointed in recent performances but now it's all about using Spurs as a platform to take into the next three games we've got and we'll massively do that.

“We want to keep our spirits positive and keep doing what we need to do – keeping each other as safe as possible inside and outside of football.

“We know it's Christmas time, being a football fan I know Christmas is the best time to be watching the games over this period.

“Hopefully we can keep that."