GUS Poyet has backed his Albion players to turnaround the worst run of his reign when West Ham visit The Amex tonight.

The Seagulls have lost three and drawn three of their last six matches after leading the Championship early on.

They were beaten by Leicester, Crystal Palace and Ipswich and have been held by Leeds, Hull and Millwall.

Poyet said: “Things have happened together at the wrong time. We were very solid but we had a few games defending very poorly as a team. We’ve made individual mistakes, loss of form of key players, a little bit of everything that together makes you lose games.

“Saying that, the game against Leeds changed in one minute. The other day (at Millwall) it was a shot from 30 yards, against Ipswich and Palace it was the last ten minutes, so we are close.

“The problem is we need to be better than close. We need to be ahead of that and I think we will be slowly, our way.”

Poyet regards West Ham as a Premier League team in waiting but has warned his players not to be in awe of them tonight after standing off Liverpool in last month’s Carling Cup defeat at The Amex.

“If we are going to go like the first half-hour against Liverpool and look at them and wait then we’ll have a problem,” he said.

“It looks like because they are not in the Premiership it’s not as special as Sunderland or Liverpool. I think it’s the same, because it should be a matter of time before West Ham are back in the Premiership.

“If not it’s because something is really, really bad so it’s great game to play in, a full house, TV, against Premiership players.”