Things are finally starting to look up for West Ham.

Winston Reid's stoppage-time strike from the edge of the box gave the Hammers a valuable victory over Sunderland and their first back-to-back return of wins of the season on Saturday.

The result also puts them within two points of Watford in ninth place, suggesting Slaven Bilic's side may well be able to start their rise up the league as they look to emulate last season's seventh-place finish.

They may well have some way to go to manage that, however, with Saturday's performance still exposing a few problems the Croatian needs to get sorted out.

It took until the 93rd minute to make the breakthrough against bottom-placed Sunderland and they, with some difficult fixtures around the corner, need to improve further.

Football FanCast takes a look at five areas West Ham still need to improve on if they want to finish in the top half this season.

THEY NEED TO BE MORE ACCURATE

Winston Reid

Considering how many chances they made, West Ham really ought to have bagged a few more goals.

The Hammers ended up having 20 shots, but only managed three on target.

Simone Zaza was particularly wasteful as the Italian had five chances on goal.

The Irons need to be more clinical in front of goal, especially against tougher sides.

STRIKERS NEED TO BE IN THE BOX

Simone Zaza

Part of the reason West Ham struggled to get their efforts on target was that they often didn’t have a focal point in the box.

Simone Zaza did a number of things right today and put in an impressive shift for his side, but still didn’t look like a man capable of leading the line.

Whether the Italian needs somebody up front with him or will be replaced by Andre Ayew or Diafra Sakho remains to be seen, but the sooner they get a fox in the box the better.

THE DEFENCE STILL NEEDS TO BE TIGHTER

Adrian

West Ham’s defensive performances of late have been more serviceable than solid.

They were lucky to get away with a clean sheet at Selhurst Park last weekend after Christian Benteke missed a couple of key chances, including a penalty.

Sunderland didn’t offer as much of an attacking threat as other teams might and the Hammers were equipped to deal with them on this occasion.

While things have undoubtedly improved since Bilic changed to three at the back, they still aren’t completely watertight and will have to tighten up over the coming weeks.

THEY NEED TO KEEP UP THEIR INTENSITY FOR 90 MINUTES

Mark Noble

One of the main reasons West Ham were so successful last season was that they pressed and harried for the full 90 minutes.

This season they seem to have lost that sense of urgency to put their opponents on the back foot and dominate games.

They managed it for the first half an hour against Sunderland and had Dimitri Payet scored rather than hit the woodwork early on, the floodgates may well have opened.

As it was, they spent the last hour or so in second gear and had to wait for a late flourish to make a breakthrough.

ANTONIO INEFFECTIVE FROM DEEP

MIchail Antonio

After scoring five goals in the first five games of the season it looked like Michail Antonio was going to be the Hammers' prime source of goals this season.

Unfortunately for the 26-year-old, injuries and a change of tactics have forced him into a deeper position and the goals have dried up as a result.

On Saturday the wide man looked frustrated that he wasn’t able to get into the box and was substituted after an hour.

To get the best out of him, Antonio needs to be in the box as much as possible.