Roy Hodgson says fourth place Crystal Palace cannot get ahead of themselves ahead of the second international break, given the daunting fixtures following their win over West Ham.
Jordan Ayew scored a late winner, delayed by two minutes thanks to a VAR check, to ensure Palace head into the break sat in the Champions League places, with West Ham missing the chance to go third.
The Eagles now face a horrible run with four of the 'big six' as well as Leicester across their next five games.
While his side have taken 14 points from eight games, Hodgson is not getting over excited.
"Things will change," Hodgson said. "I still fully believe in a championship being a marathon race. It's nice to start reasonably well and be up with the front runners, but you know you've got to keep up that pace and one of the things we don’t have is a big squad.
"But if we can keep our heads above water and get to January I hope we can do something about that."
The late VAR call ensured Palace took all three points in east London, but Hodgson felt they were worthy of the win without the help of technology.
"When it works in your favour of course, VAR is what it is, I can understand the manager who has suffered the decision," Hodgson said. "It was unbelievably close, it took so long for the screen to show whether it was right or wrong but I thought our performance over 90 minutes meant that we didn't have to apologise to anyone."
