Manager Manuel Pellegrini feels West Ham United are in decent shape for the run-in to
the end of the season as they prepare to face Cardiff City on Saturday.

The Hammers find themselves ninth in the Premier League standings, with 39 points from 29 games played, and it would take a huge meltdown and a number of unusual results elsewhere for the East End outfit not to be playing top-flight football next season.

They have suffered more than most with injuries this term but seem to be coming out the other side, with the likes of Manuel Lanzini, Marko Arnautovic, Fabian Balbuena, Samir Nasri and Ryan Fredericks now back in the ranks.

Two wins and two draws from the past five games have propelled the capital club in the right direction and Pellegrini appears upbeat with the players that he now has at his disposal.

“We are in a good moment of the season because we are a team that is playing well and in this case we now also have a bench which can make a difference,” he told the club’s website.

“We had a lot of important players with long injuries throughout the season and I think that was one of the merits of this team, to try to be involved when it had so many players for whom it was impossible to play.”

Cardiff are deep in relegation trouble, with three straight defeats seeing them sit 18th in the table but just two points from safety.

Neil Warnock’s charges are 3.40 to take all three points on home soil, with West Ham on offer at 2.20 and the draw 3.40.