Upson confident West Ham will beat the drop

West Ham captain Matthew Upson is confident his team can beat the drop and says they have restored some much needed spirit to the dressing room.

Despite suffering a 1-0 defeat against Sunderland on Sunday which saw them return to the foot of the table, West Ham have improved their recent performances with victories over Wigan and Manchester United last week.

Upson was disappointed that his side could not carry that form into the game at the Stadium of Light, but has seen enough positives to believe his side can climb away from the bottom three.

West Ham boss Avram Grant continues to face speculation surrounding his long-term future, but Upson has no doubts that the players are good enough to stay in the Premier League.

Upson said: "We have improved and we look like we have got a chance of staying up. A few weeks ago, we probably weren't in as positive a state as we are now.

"It is good that the team can think like that and I feel going into every game that we can take something from that.

"We have had a big week - it was a big game for us (against Manchester United) and it would have been nice to have kept an unbeaten streak going."