West Ham United defender James Collins, has insisted that the Hammers can't continue to depend on talisman Dimitri Payet.

Saves the day once again

Slaven Bilic's side were in desperate need of the three points against Aitor Karanka's Middlesbrough side on Saturday, having lost their previous four league encounters, and conceding 14 goals.

It was looking to be another miserable afternoon after Cristhian Stuani had given the Teesside club the lead. However an excellent solo effort from Payet managed to save a point and end their dreadful losing streak.

This isn't the first time that the Hammers have had to rely on their prized Frenchman, since his arrival from Marseille last summer, and Collins believes that they cant continue to depend on the 29-year-old.

“It’s a great goal and Dimi is a world-class player, but we can’t depend on him,” Collins told whufc.com. “We can’t depend on him to keep making goals like this, we need to be better defensively and better going forward and take our chances."

He continued: “It’s a lot to keep asking Dimi to come up with goals like that, so it’s something we need to work on.”

Above: James Collins in action during West Ham's 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough | Photo: Getty Images
Above: James Collins in action during West Ham's 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough | Photo: Getty Images

Coming back stronger

Collins will be one of a handful of Hammers that will be going on international duty in the next week, with the 33-year-old Welsh defender taking on Austria and Georgia in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers.

West Ham will travel across London to take on Crystal Palace after the international break, and Collins believes that they can come back stronger to take on Alan Pardew's side.

“We can come back stronger after the break,” he insisted. “We needed that. We had a good week’s training and a couple of meetings as it’s not been going great over the last few games."

Collins concluded: “We’ve stopped conceding goals, defended reasonably well apart from their goal and got a point.”

West Ham United will take on Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Saturday, October 15 with kick-off at 5:30pm BST.

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Danial  Kennedy
Award-winning sports journalism graduate. Currently studying a PR Masters at the University of Sunderland. Writing for VAVEL since August 2014. Twitter - @ddkjournalism.