Lukasz Fabianski expects the race for fourth place to go down to the wire after West Ham’s hopes of reaching the Champions League were handed a boost with a 1-0 win over Wolves.
Tomas Soucek and Michail Antonio linked up for the only goal of the game, when the Czech Republic international tapped home after being teed up in front of goal to give West Ham the lead and ultimately the three points.
Fabianski was relatively untroubled during the match as Wolves were predominantly forced into trying their luck from distance, with the West Ham goalkeeper dealing with just one shot on target all game.
Fabianski said: “It was a massive win, but I think we deserved the win. We played really well. We created a good amount of chances.
“I think we pressed well. We were good with the ball. It was a very pleasing performance and a very important three points.”
The victory lifts West Ham up into fifth, above Arsenal and just two points behind fourth-placed Manchester United, and Fabianski believes the race for a Champions League spot could go into the final matchday.
“It always does. I think if you look at the history of the Premier League it always goes to the last day of the season,” the goalkeeper said.
“I think what we want to do is basically stay in the mix and do our best, to give ourselves the chance to compete for the highest possible position in the table.
“That’s our aim – to be very competitive until the last day of the Premier League.”
Wolves’ troubles in the final third continued – with only Burnley and Norwich scoring fewer goals – and they consistently struggled to break down the Hammers, often to be denied by an impressive defensive performance from Kurt Zouma.
“The most important thing is we come in the moment and we have 12 games to go and the people are talking about what is our goal, I think it should be very clear, our goal is to continue the way that we play, so we go now to the next match against Crystal Palace and we need to go there and play like we did against West Ham,” Wolves manager Bruno Lage said.
He added: “(At) Arsenal we conceded a goal in the end, 95th minute, (against West Ham) we conceded that chance and we don’t score any goals so we don’t win nothing but I think we can understand better we are not far away from these teams, it’s in small details, it’s in experience.
“We need to win in the next 12 games and we will continue to do our job, a good season until now and we need to fight from now until the end of the Premier League.”
