West Ham United have three games to find their form or risk being dragged into a Premier League relegation battle, according to Ian Wright.

A run of four defeats on the bounce has left the Hammers firmly rooted in the early-season drop zone with just three points to their name after six games.

Slaven Bilic’s men face Middlesbrough at the London Stadium on Saturday, then travel to Selhurst Park to play Crystal Palace, before hosting Sunderland.

Wright feels those matches could be instrumental in defining how the Londoners’ season pans out and says the club’s board may have rested on their laurels during the summer.

“After the delights of last season, it seems the board almost expected things to continue at the London Stadium,” Wright said in his column in the Sun newspaper.

“It didn’t take long for that to go crashing, did it? Problems with seating, security and where it matters most – on the pitch.

“Yes, they spent £20.5 million on Andre Ayew and were hugely unfortunate when he was injured in the first game. But where was the eye-opening signing in the summer?

“If they don’t get the right results in that little block, they could be down the bottom end for the whole season.”

The former Arsenal and England striker also questioned the form of the key players who did so much to take West Ham to a seventh-place finish last season.

He believes stars such as Dimitri Payet have fallen short of their own high standards and suggested sloppy errors have cost them at times this season.

He said: “Dimitri Payet is still not totally on it and there have been individual mistakes all over the place.

“Only Michail Antonio has been doing the business – it’s a worrying situation.”

The visit of Middlesbrough presents an immediate chance for the Hammers to rediscover their form against a side which has also found the Premier League going tough this season.

Boro are just two points and two places above United in the table and victory could see the London Stadium club move out of the relegation zone.

Aitor Karanka’s team started the season brightly, taking five points from an unbeaten first three games, but have since lost three in a row.

They suffered a 2-1 home defeat against Tottenham Hotspur last time out after what the Boro boss described as a “frustrating” first-half performance which Karanka hopes will not resurface on Saturday.

“The first half was really frustrating because we have been working very hard this week on the training ground,” he said.

“Then you arrive on the pitch and seven minutes later you are losing, it is difficult to understand.

“In the second half, the attitude especially was really different. Which team do we want to be – the first-half team or the second-half team?

“If we are the first-half team, we will have problems in the Premier League. If we are the second-half team, we will win a few games.”

Defeat on Saturday could see the Hammers slip to the foot of the Premier League table going into the international break, dependent on results elsewhere.