Nuno wants singular focus as West Ham look to punish Spurs slip-up

West Ham boss Nuno Espirito Santo says playing after their fellow relegation candidates does not change their preparations, ahead of Monday's trip to Crystal Palace.

The Hammers thrashed Wolves 4-0 in their most recent Premier League fixture to climb out of the relegation zone, having enjoyed something of a revival since the turn of the year.

It looked as though they might be dropped back into the bottom three on Saturday when rivals Tottenham led Brighton 2-1 going into second-half stoppage time, but Georginio Rutter fired into the roof of the net to deal a hammer blow to Roberto De Zerbi's team.

West Ham now have an opportunity to pull four points clear of Spurs and deepen their old rivals' fears of the drop, but Nuno is focused entirely on his own team.

"This week has been good," he said. "I don't think there is a risk of complacency. It's all positive after a good performance. 

"Our preparation doesn't change. We have to focus only on ourselves. We cannot control what happens at the other stadiums, so I don't see a big difference in that.

"The players will decide what they want to do. If they want to see the matches, okay, but the message is clear – we have to focus on Monday against Palace as that's important for us."

Asked how it felt to finally see the Irons outside the bottom three, he added: "It's much better when you see you made a big effort to improve the situation, but nothing has changed really, as we still have six games to go and a lot of work to do.

"The big challenge that we have ahead of us is to sustain our level of performance, which is very hard. This is the big challenge, for the whole 90 minutes."

Opponents Palace are coming off the high of reaching the Conference League semi-finals, with a 2-1 defeat at Fiorentina last Thursday proving inconsequential after they won the home leg 3-0.

And centre-back Chris Richards says Oliver Glasner's side are improving as a result of their experiences in Europe, with a last-four tie against Shakhtar Donetsk to come.

"You have to sometimes adapt to different playing styles, different countries, how they play, different referees... Everything's different to the Prem," Richards said.

"It's different things that you have to learn, and it's only experience that you can gain by playing in Europe, so every game, regardless of if we won, lost or drew, was a learning experience, and we'll be taking that into the next round."

PLAYERS TO WATCH 

Crystal Palace – Jean-Philippe Mateta

Mateta's brace against Newcastle United in Palace's last Premier League outing took him to 48 goals in the competition for the Eagles, with Wilfried Zaha (68) the only previous Palace player to score 50. 

He has netted 37 goals in 75 Premier League games under Oliver Glasner, the outright most by an Eagles player under one manager – Zaha scored 35 in 134 under Roy Hodgson.

West Ham – Jarrod Bowen

Since the start of 2026, only Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes (11) has more Premier League assists than West Ham talisman Bowen (seven in 13 games). 

Bowen has also scored in each of his last two league games against Palace.