West Ham players need to get their confidence back: Pearce

David Moyes replaced Slaven Bilic as West Ham manager last week with the club in the relegation zone after winning two of their 11 league games and the Scot will take charge of his first match during Sunday's trip to Watford.

Pearce, who previously played for West Ham for two years from 1999 to 2001, was named as one of Moyes' assistants last weekend and the 55-year-old has backed the team to turn their fortunes around.

"David (Moyes) is acutely aware – as we all are – of exactly where the club are at this moment in time," Pearce told the club's website (www.whufc.com).

"The main thing is to enhance the togetherness at the club...

"Confidence has been dented and that is part of the task, to get that back on track. We need to find that togetherness again and the players are the most powerful ones of all in showing that."

Midfielder Michail Antonio, who is currently sidelined with a rib injury, believes the 54-year-old Moyes will make a positive impact at West Ham.

"He's come in and things have been quite intense. Everything's quite different. He's out there, he's standing with the boys, he's taking training himself and he's very involved," Antonio said.

"I see positive things. I feel like things are going to go well under him.

"With the squad that we have, we definitely shouldn't be in the situation that we are in. With a bit of structure and more belief and confidence, we will definitely be going up the league." (Reporting by Aditi Prakash in Bengaluru; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)