David Moyes hopes West Ham take advantage of the fixture list and consolidate their position in the Champions League places.
The Hammers visit lowly Burnley on Sunday sitting in fourth place after last weekend’s impressive win over Chelsea, while fifth-placed Spurs are not in action due to the coronavirus outbreak that has infected 13 first-team players and staff.
Then on Wednesday, they travel to the Emirates Stadium to take on Arsenal, who are also vying for a place in the top four after an encouraging season so far under Mikel Arteta.
If West Ham can win both of those games – with Spurs also possibly out of action next week as well – they could give themselves a cushion going into the festive period.
Moyes is wary of the challenge ahead, though.
“I think it does give us a chance to try and do that,” he said. “But also we’ve got to be mindful of the level of competition.
“I think that the Premier League, all games are tough, so we go to Burnley and it’s always tough there and you’re talking about Arsenal as if they are not an excellent team so I think it’s easy to say it – in real-life action, they’re really tough games.
“I hope you’re right and that we can win them and really hammer it home and that we can get ourselves in a really good position.
“The Tottenham situation, you never know how it works. It may somehow benefit them. It may also favour Brighton as they have had quite a few injuries so they might say this is a good opportunity to miss a game.”
West Ham are sweating on the fitness of Aaron Cresswell, who has been out with a back injury.
Moyes added: “Cress is doing much better, it will be touch and go if he makes it or not.
“We’ve seen him out and about a little bit and he’s doing a bit more, feeling a bit more mobile than he has been. It would be important if we could get him back, it would help us a lot.
“We’ll give him every opportunity to try and make it.”
