Dyer won’t panic over poor start
Dyer, 31, has seen the last three years of his career wrecked by
injury and was forced to undergo a series of painful massages this
summer to reduce the scar tissue left on his leg by a succession of
operations. The radical treatment appears to have paid off, with
the former England winger having started the Hammers’ last two
league matches. Saturday’s 3-0 defeat at Manchester United was just
his ninth top-flight start since joining West Ham in the summer of
2007. And although it was the club’s third successive defeat since
the start of the season, Dyer is confident they can haul themselves
off the foot of the table after the international break. “Man
United away is not going to determine how our season goes, but it’s
another 3-0 loss, he told his club’s official website,
www.whufc.com. “It would have been good to get some kind of result
just to get the confidence up. “Obviously, last season was a
massive struggle but, where I’m coming from, for me personally, I’m
just buzzing to play football again. “We’ve got two weeks now and
they’ve got to get the confidence from somewhere because when we do
click and we do get it together, we are not a bad team.” Despite
making a losing return to the side, Dyer has impressed on his two
appearances and received a warm welcome back by Hammers fans. “We
were losing 2-0 to Bolton when I came off and they gave me a
standing ovation and that meant a lot to me,” he said. “My message
to them is, ‘We will start winning eventually and we’ll get up that
league table’.” West Ham have never before started a season with
four straight league defeats but that now looks to be a real
possibility, with red-hot Chelsea their next opponents. But Dyer
said: “We believe we can beat Chelsea. It’s a completely different
game. “It’s a derby game and form will go out of the window. We’ll
have the crowd and it’s one of those games where Scotty [Parker]
gets in the tackles and gets the crowd going. “The manager is
trying to change the mentality of players and we have to change it.
“We have to start winning games. We’re obviously playing catch-up
already.”