Monday night football at West Ham, a look back at Brighton

You all know I'm a fan of going out to win games and that you have to start matches that way if you are to stand a chance. I've never written that you will win if you do that and against Brighton last weekend, we were unlucky.

We went out the right way, things just didn't go for us. We could have won the game quite easily and nobody would have been surprised if we did. It wasn't like Southampton or Leeds where we were too cautious, it just didn't work the way it should.

And sometimes, those things just happen. But you still have to go out the right way to stand a chance and I don't think because we didn't beat Brighton, things will change.

And we know the above to be true, so it really should be more of the same against West Ham on Monday night.

And Monday night is an important match for both sides. West Ham are one point behind us and if we are going to have any more dreams this season, we need to win so we can believe. And I know I'm slightly overly optimistic at the moment, but I believe more often than not, if we go out to win and we create those chances we can.

And I think West Ham are going to approach this match in a similar way to how we should. And that is good for us because it will help us with creating chances. We just need to be better at taking them.

And a few minutes ago (Saturday actually) I wrote about dreams this season. Dreams are important. If we look at Liverpool right now, they've got 21 points and they've played ten games. We've played 8 and have 15. And on the BBC Football pages right now there is a story asking why Everton's strong start has stalled.

We can have the dream, because nobody is writing about us. We win our two games in hand and we would go above Liverpool on goal difference. We draw tomorrow and we go above Everton. Nobody is writing about our strong start and the only reason they are writing about Everton is because of Ancelotti.

If Leicester can dream, so can we. And this isn't me saying we can win the League, but this League is as open as it ever has been these days and Clubs have figured out it's as much about having a framework and sticking to it as it is having the right players. It needs both and one can compensate for the other.

Match facts from the BBC

These will be coming tomorrow. They are not published yet.