Allardyce braced for tough few weeks as Man City, Newcastle, Man Utd & co await

By Tom Moore Thursday, November 1, 2012
1:20 PM

West Ham manager Sam Allardyce is prepared for a nightmare set of fixtures and admitted that points against the top clubs would be a bonus

The Hammers face Manchester City, Newcastle, Stoke, Tottenham and Manchester United in November.

And it does not get any easier in December as they face Chelsea, Liverpool, West Brom, Everton, Arsenal and Reading.

“We knew about this run of games at the start of the season, that is why we were looking to get the points on the board that we did,” Allardyce said.

“Nine games have passed by and two disappointing results have come away - at Swansea and Wigan. Southampton and Reading will be looking at us and feeling jealous but there is this group of fixtures which are very difficult indeed.

“We accept we probably won’t get as many points as we collected in the first part of the season but we have to try to get as many as we can and move on to late December and January.

Despite this, Allardyce believes that results against the likes of Chelsea, Tottenham and the Manchester duo will not dramatically affect their season.

“Our season is determined by what we do against the bottom eight, not the top five or six - that is an ultimate bonus if you get a result against them.

“It’s what we do against the bottom eight teams, even if we are one of those in the bottom eight.

“When we play against them we have to make sure we don’t lose - at least win one and draw one. If we do that we know we will be safe at the end of the season.”

However, West Ham were beaten by one of those sides, Wigan, on Saturday and Allardyce knows that his side can ill-afford to make the same mistakes against the reigning champions.

“The defeat at Wigan was a blow,” he added. “I think that we never really got out of the blocks from the start and it shows you that anything less than 100% when you’re newly promoted will reflect on your result.

“It was a warning sign for that. I can only hope it is a one-off in terms of the type of performance we gave. Even after that we almost sneaked a draw with the few chances we did create.

“We’re looking to get back to what we know we can do, against Manchester City it’s a necessity for the whole XI to play to their best ability, never mind one or two being off their game.”