CARLTON COLE believes West Ham are ‘close to where we want to be’ despite the club having made their worst start to a season in seven years.

The striker’s optimism stems from an encouraging team display against last year’s Premier League runners-up Liverpool at Upton Park on Saturday, when they were eventually beaten 3-2 after twice coming from behind.

It was the club’s third defeat of the season, leaving them languishing down in 14th place in the table, far removed from the top six spot manager Gianfranco Zola has set his side the target of achieving this season.

Like his manager, Cole is upbeat about the team’s potential, and he is convinced it is merely the ‘finer details’ that are preventing his side from challenging with the division’s top clubs.

“We didn’t get what we deserved out of the game and we matched them like for like, but they’ve got class players that will punish you if you make one little mistake and that’s what happened,” said the England international, who grabbed West Ham’s second goal to make it 2-2 just before half-time.

“The manager’s looking to improve and you can see how much improvement there was. We didn’t play well at Wigan last week and that is the main plus point for us to take from this game.

“All I can say is that we’re close to where we want to get to and what we want to achieve. We matched them but it’s the finer details that have killed us today.”

One particular ray of light for the Hammers can be seen in the shape of 20-year-old striker Zavon Hines, who has taken to the Premier League like a duck to water.

He caused Liverpool’s defence all kinds of problems at the weekend, hitting a post early on before forcing an error out of experienced defender Jamie Carragher to win his team a penalty.

Alessandro Diamanti slipped at the crucial moment but still managed to find the net from the resulting kick, capping an impressive full debut for him.

Mexico international striker Guillermo Franco has also been drafted in, and Cole is confident the diverse attack Zola can now boast is capable of scoring the goals needed to fuel a pursuit for a European place. “We’ve got good players to do that (push for Europe) and have a strong squad. We’ve got some players coming back from injury as well and they will be like new signings for us.

“After the Christmas period we’re going to be really strong. We’re just finding our way right now but we will get the results that we need soon.”

Speaking of the emergence of his new strike partner, Cole was full of praise. “We’ve got talent everywhere you look on the pitch. Zavon has done so well. I was so impressed by his performance today. He wasn’t overawed and he kept going at Glen Johnson and you could see he didn’t like it. He’s a real talent and an asset for the club. Hopefully he can keep going from strength to strength.”