West Ham are determined to ensure their season does not end with a whimper, according to defender Carl Jenkinson.
Their latest disappointing result came at Manchester City on Sunday as they went down to an insipid 2-0 defeat.The Hammers' once promising campaign has tailed off, with a run of just one win in 11 Barclays Premier League games seeing the club slip from Champions League contention to mid-table.
With Europe now not realistic and relegation not an issue, the Hammers would now seem to have little to play for but Jenkinson insists the remaining five games are not meaningless.
The 23-year-old, who has enjoyed a successful season-long loan from Arsenal and could make the switch permanently, said: "People in our dressing room are fired up. If you came in the changing room after the game you'd see that.
"People aren't resting on their laurels, people ain't happy finishing mid-table. We want to kick on. We have got something to prove now because we have been on a bad run of games and we want to put that right. We owe that to ourselves and the fans."
West Ham were never in the game at the Etihad Stadium, losing after a bizarre own goal from James Collins and a swift counter-attack strike from Sergio Aguero before half-time.
Enner Valencia and Kevin Nolan did have late chances after City lost momentum following injury to David Silva but they were generally lacklustre throughout the contest.
Jenkinson felt the visitors paid the price for their mistakes but does not feel the team are much doing much differently from the early part of the season.
He said: "I wouldn't want to blame it on luck but a few things haven't gone our way lately and we have conceded some late goals.
"I think this was a different story - we made a couple of mistakes and got punished.
"Of course we have got to work on our performances but if you look at the last 10 games, our performances haven't been bad at all.
"We have had some really good performances but teams have scored late goals against us and we have ended up getting a point instead of three. It has been a bit frustrating.
"I just think early on in the season we were finishing everything. Everything we got was going in the back of net and at important times of the game.
"We have gone ahead in recent games but never killed the games off and have ended up conceding cheaply towards the end of the game. Of course that is a real kick in the teeth.
"It is not nice blaming things on luck - you make your own luck - but that has been the story of our last couple of months."
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