West Ham midfielder Matthew Taylor has urged his team-mates not to be distracted by outside influences as the Hammers battle to keep out of the relegation zone. Bottom club Sunderland are the visitors to Upton Park on Saturday afternoon.
"There's no point in beating around the bush, we need three points at home," he said.
"Sunderland obviously are going to need three points as well so I'm sure it will be a good game. The manager has been very vocal with us in that we need to get back to getting the basics right and earning the right to play.
"There are no easy games in the Premier League and Saturday will be another difficult one. We need to concentrate on what we're doing in house first, and if we can get that correct, it will go a long way to securing a positive result for us.
"Experience counts for a lot in these situations, but you can't get caught up in the media frenzy that surrounds the game. We need to concentrate on ourselves and a lot of it boils down to can anybody who is playing, play better than their opposite number.
"If you can do so and make less mistakes than they do, you have a great chance of winning the game."
