Brooking confident of extending run while Sunderland believe bad days are over

Trevor Brooking is confident that his unbeaten run as West Ham's stand-in manager can continue at Ipswich today but knows his club faces a long slog to win an automatic return to the Premiership.

"This division is all about effort, effort, effort," said Glenn Roeder's temporary successor, who has said he does not want to be considered for the manager's job on a permanent basis. "If you match that with technical ability, which we've got, you have a chance."

West Ham's midweek win over Bradford left them just two points behind the division's early leaders. They will meet an Ipswich side that has yet to see a win in four games.

"It's not down to a lack of effort, but we just haven't come to terms with things this season," Jim Magilton, Ipswich's captain, said. "We're disappointed and upset about it, and we feel for our fans because they deserve better. Two points from four games simply isn't good enough and a lot of the players are just not performing as we can."

Sunderland, who know how bad things can get, seem revitalised after two Bank Holiday wins following 17 straight defeats, believe their woes are over. They travel to Bradford today looking for a third consecutive victory that could lift them to the top of the table.

"Winning the last two games has given us a bit confidence," Marcus Stewart, the Sunderland striker, said. "I will be expecting to score and we will be expecting to get three points - that is the confidence that's flowing through everybody at the moment."

Bradford have slumped to two successive 1-0 defeats after picking up four points from their first two fixtures.

At the top, Crystal Palace go into the south London derby at Millwall with injury doubts, including Dougie Freedman. "We're going to have to wait to see how serious the various knocks are," Steve Kember, Palace's manager, said.

Norwich travel to Nottingham Forest for today's televised match at 5.35pm, with manager Nigel Worthington saying: "Obviously we're expecting a significant improvement on last season's showing [a 4-0 defeat]."