Zola aiming for Europe

12 April 2012

Gianfranco Zola has trained his sights firmly on playing European football next season after watching West Ham secure their first win in a month.

Jack Collison volleyed home the only goal of the game in Sunday's defeat of an off-colour Manchester City, leaving the Hammers in an impressive seventh place.

Zola said: "I always look up the table, not down. I always try to focus not on my problems but on the good things that can happen to me."

The Hammers were without a win in their last three Barclays Premier League outings during a run which also saw them knocked out of the FA Cup by Middlesbrough.

Zola admitted his side's winless streak had started to become a concern but remains eager to focus on the possibility of a place in the 2009/10 Europa League - a rebranded version of the UEFA Cup.

"It wasn't just me, I think many people were thinking about it in the back of their minds," said Zola.

"We were playing well but not getting results. But I'm a positive person and the players I have make me positive; I was confident we were going to pick up a game.

"Now we are seventh and we are going to try and stay there as long as possible.

"At seventh now, if the combinations (of results) are right for us we could go into Europe. We are going to be fighting to keep this spot."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in