April 14 (Reuters) – Stoke City’s Premier League trip to West Ham United on Monday is a “massive” game for the club in their fight to retain top-flight status, defender Bruno Martins Indi has said.
Stoke are second from bottom in the league standings with 27 points, four points adrift of safety with five games remaining and the Dutch international said the club did not want to let their fans down in the final part of a dismal campaign.
“We know that Monday is a massive (game) for all of us, we’re going there to win. We need to win,” Martins Indi told Stoke’s website https://www.stokecityfc.com/news/fighting-for-all.
“You know the responsibility is huge… we’re fighting for a lot of people, and we don’t want to let them down.”
West Ham have also had problems with consistency this season but the London club have found form in their last two games, beating Southampton 3-0 before holding defending champions Chelsea to a 1-1 draw last weekend.
“They are around us and have struggled as well this season, but they have found a bit of momentum in the last couple of games so they will be confident. We will be prepared to keep them as quiet as possible,” Martins Indi added.
Stoke are winless in their last nine games and were beaten by Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur in their last two games but Martins Indi said there were positives from those defeats.
“The team spirit and effort was there to see against Arsenal and Tottenham so we need to match that level of performance.
“There are things we need to improve. One of those is scoring more goals. We need to take our chances when they come along because we need to get victories in the final matches.” (Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
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