Leicester sits 19th, five points from safety, after turning in a disappointing display in a 2-0 defeat to West Ham United on Friday (AEDT).

The Foxes never threatened their hosts at London Stadium, where they accumulated just two shots on target.

Tomas Soucek's opener and Jannik Vestergaard's own goal settled the contest, and Leicester has lost 11 of its past 12 Premier League games.

In his 14 games in charge, Van Nistelrooy has picked up just seven points, three fewer than previous Leicester boss Steve Cooper managed this season (10 in 12 games).

"We are in a situation where we are not winning games and we are in a situation where we are in the bottom three," Van Nistelrooy said.

"The pressure is on. The way to get out of this is to move forward literally on the pitch as well.

"It doesn't mean you have to go and press in a one v one situation, but we have to take initiative. We cannot wait and sit back. That is the situation we are in.

"The goals [we] concede are easy goals. It's a reflection of how we played in the first half. If you see the difference in the first and the second half, how we as a team moved forward to press the opponent, play with urgency after winning duels, in the first half we were waiting way too much.

"We have to put the opponent under pressure in the right way." 

Leicester was second best to West Ham, which claimed back-to-back league wins for the first time since March last year.

"Not fantastic, but we are delighted with two wins, two clean sheets and six points," Hammers boss Graham Potter said. "[I am] delighted for the players. They have been working really hard."

Soucek marked his 30th birthday with a goal, becoming just the second player in Premier League history to net on his birthday in two different years, having previously done so in 2022.

"It's a great birthday – it's a big one, I wanted to win and with a goal it's even better," he said.

"We can celebrate now, we got what we wanted. We knew we'd got a very good win at Arsenal and we wanted to build on that, get a win at home and I'm so happy.

"In the last two games we've showed good spirit, good football and we hope that can help show the manager we believe in what he's doing."