Our West Ham Columnist Tony Cottee wants the team to pick up at least three points from the two games over Christmas

Sunday’s game at Swansea wasn’t the most exciting of matches and both teams can take responsibility for that. Swansea had a lot of possession, but didn’t make that many chances and from our point of view we didn’t create a lot.

After 10-15 minutes it looked like it would finish goalless and that was the case. I still think it is a decent point because Swansea is a tough place to go.

I know they have not been playing too well recently, but a lot of sides will struggle there so I think it wasn’t a bad result for us. It is a case of trying to hang onto our eighth position at the moment with all the injuries we have got.

We had a fabulous start to the season, but it is important now with the problems we have that we keep taking points. People say you haven’t won in seven games, but we also haven’t lost in four so it depends on how you look at it.

It was a blow to lose Andy Carroll for the match at Swansea, especially because this is exactly when we need him with so many other injuries.

Nikica Jelavic worked hard, but he was a little bit off the pace which is to be expected. It was good to have Enner Valencia come on and he was a little bit unlucky towards the end.

The main objective for us now is to pick up a few points and not get any more injuries going into 2016. We have two games in three days, Saturday and Monday, which is tough on everyone at the club.

As a player I loved the Christmas period. I would always rather play than train, that was the era we were brought up in, and I remember in the 1983/84 season where we played on December 26 and then the following day. You look back now and think ‘how did we do that!’

If players think they have it hard now these days, they should go back to the 80s when we had rubbish pitches to deal with and going even further back they used to play on Christmas Day!

Looking ahead to our two matches, Aston Villa have been really poor recently so it is a good time to play them. Their fans can get very agitated so if we can keep them quiet early on and nick a goal, it could be a really good Boxing Day for us.

It is the same with Southampton, they are struggling for form at the minute, but obviously have better players than Villa. They have struggled, so it is a good time to be playing both of them.

It would be nice if we could get four points out of it. Even if we lose one, but win the other it would still be a good return. I think we can nick a win at Villa so I will go for a 1-0 there, but I reckon we’ll have to settle for a 1-1 at home to Southampton.

Finally I’d just like to wish all the West Ham fans a very Merry Christmas. COYI!