West Ham will hit top eight target, says assistant manager Neil McDonald

West Ham assistant manager Neil McDonald has assured Hammers fans that the club are still aiming for a top eight finish despite their recent poor run of form.

After being touted as challengers for the Champions League places before the turn of the year, the Hammers have been unable to replicate their early season form and have since plummeted into mid-table.

Despite this, McDonald believes that the East London club can still finish the campaign strongly.

McDonald told the club’s official website “Our progression is trying to get into the top eight if we possibly can. At the start of the season it was top ten and with the points we started off with it was realistic to set the target a little bit higher.”

“We just fell short over the last four or five games against the top teams in the league. Hopefully we can pick up a few points now and believe in ourselves as we have done against the top teams.”

West Ham’s fall from European contention could be down to the fact that they have faced six of the current top eight in the Premier League during this period.

McDonald, though, is defiant that their recent performance levels have been worthy of greater results and that the coaching staff remains optimistic going into the latter stages of the season.

He added; “We all know that we have had a lot of tough games against a lot of the top six teams and the manager is happy with certain aspects of the game and unhappy with others.