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.”