Exclusive – Collison confident of automatic promotion for West Ham

West Ham star Jack Collison has told talkSPORT that the club’s players are relishing being favourites to win the Championship as they try to return to the Premier League at the first attempt.

With Sam Allardyce at the helm and stars like Kevin Nolan and Matty Taylor boosting the club’s squad and key players like Scott Parker still with the Hammers, things are beginning to look a bit rosier at Upton Park.

And Collison is confident West Ham can challenge for promotion straight back to the top tier of English football.

He told Drive Time: “It’s going to be a big challenge but we’ve got the squad to do it. There’s a lot of expectation and it’s going to be a different type of pressure for us this year but everyone is looking forward to it, it’s important we get off to a good start. We just want to get automatic promotion.

“There’s a really good spirit in the camp at the moment, the manager has come in with his own ideas and new staff so it’s freshened up the place up a bit and the boys are relishing the chance to be favourites and have a go and get automatic promotion again.

“It’s a bit interesting with the transfer window open until the end of the month. [Since] the manager has come in everyone has been fully committed in training and trying to impress to get in the starting team. Everyone’s pushing each other and we’re all pushing in the same direction trying to get automatic promotion.

“There’s a lot of competition for places and the more of the top players we can keep hold of with the new additions we’ll have a really good chance next year.”

The youngster’s team-mate, Scott Parker has been the subject of much interest over the transfer window from Premier League sides but Collison admits no-one really knows what is going on with the England star’s future at the club.

Collison added: “At the moment you don’t know what’s going on up above but [Parker] has been fully committed in training and working very hard and I’m sure he’s looking forward to Sunday as is everyone else.”

But the Welsh midfielder believes his own future will be sorted fairly shortly, adding: “It’s all getting sorted at the moment, I feel like I owe a lot of people at Upton Park, especially the fans. They’ve been very patient with me so I’m looking forward to trying to have a good season here and then hopefully things will be sorted in the next week or two.”