West Ham boss has no regrets over Wigan cup exit ahead of next meeting

Thursday, October 25, 2012
5:01 PM

Sam Allardyce believes his West Ham side have bounced back brilliantly from the 4-1 Capital One Cup humbling against Wigan and believes the wholesale changes he made have worked in his favour.

The Hammers travel to the DW Stadium on Saturday to face the Latics, this time in the Premier League, with the manager anticipating a far closer battle.

At home in the cup the 58-year-old fielded a team of youngsters and fringe players and they came a cropper, but it has been a different story in the league, where they sit seventh, having won four of their opening eight games.

Allardyce believes this good run of form, on their return to the top flight, has been down to the use of his squad in other competitions.

“Like everything else you change your side accordingly,” Allardyce said of the last meeting with Wigan.

“I think I made eight changes (nine changes) on the day and obviously that was too many and too many of the youngsters came in and didn’t quite perform to the level I hoped.

“We suffered a defeat we deserved to suffer - our ability to come back from that and not linger on that has been absolutely excellent.

“While our first priority lies with the Premier League. I’m sure everybody understands that where we are in the Premier League now is probably down to me changing the side around going into games against Crewe and then Wigan, sadly we lost but we have benefited in the Premier League from then on.”