David Moyes is targeting “five or six” wins between now and the end of the season as the West Ham boss backed Roy Hodgson’s assertion that 40 points should still be enough for Premier League survival.
The Hammers meet Hodgson’s Palace side in Saturday’s early kick-off at Selhurst Park, with both teams looking increasingly likely to stave off the threat of relegation.
Palace won three games in a row immediately after Hodgson’s surprise return to the club and are now eight points clear of the bottom-three, though they have since lost to Wolves and been held by struggling Everton.
West Ham, meanwhile, have improved markedly in recent weeks and, despite a controversial 2-1 defeat to Liverpool in midweek, are still five points clear of the drop with a game in hand on all their rivals. One more win would all-but secure safety for Moyes’s side but the Scot is setting his sights higher.
“We are searching for five or six wins between now and the end of the season,” Moyes said. “That’s what we are doing, we are not just looking for one. We have got to give everything we can.
“We had a couple of good games away and if we can continue to build on that and keep our performance levels high, which they have been recently, it will give us every chance.
“I thought we did a lot of good things against Liverpool. We were competitive and we took a good side quite close in the end. We had a couple of decisions which did not quite go in our favour. Sometimes when you play those sorts of sides you need that, but on the night we didn’t get them.”
The 40-point mark has traditionally been set as the target for safety but in the vast majority of Premier League seasons the bar has been much lower.
Palace’s current total of 37 points, three more than West Ham, would have been enough to guarantee survival in all-but one of the last ten seasons. The last team to get 40 points and still go down were the Irons, who were famously relegated despite getting 42 in 2002/03.
“We are in a position in the league which we would rather not be in but we have to keep picking up points and we have to try and climb up the table,” Moyes added. “Our aim is to get as high up the table as we possibly can.
“I think everybody targets 40 points because in history we see it as a number which usually gives you safety. And I think Roy is right in what he says and that we all have to push for that points total whether you need to reach that [to stay up] is up for debate.”
