Pellegrini: West Ham’s finishing will need to be better against Leicester

© Nigel French/PA Wire

West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini has challenged his team to find the missing piece of their game when they travel to Leicester.

The Irons head to the King Power Stadium on the back of successive 1-0 Premier League defeats either side of the international break.

Those negative results broke a run of improved form which started with a first Premier League win at Everton, holding Chelsea to a goalless draw and then thumping Macclesfield 8-0 in their Carabao Cup tie before beating Manchester United 3-1.

Pellegrini has seen enough in recent performances to give him confidence for the challenges ahead, provided the team can find a cutting edge once again.

“I feel that we are improving,” the West Ham boss said.

“If you saw the game against Tottenham (last weekend), the team that maybe created more chances and deserved to win was our team, but we didn’t.

“So, in the last four games, in three of them, I agree we are playing well and improving, but also in three of those last four games we didn’t score goals, so something is missing. We must score the chances we have.

“We continue to work on defending and we’re improving a lot. Now we must score the chances we create, or create even more chances.”