West Ham United's Joey O'Brien. Picture: Rebecca Naden/PA Wire

Joey O’Brien is grateful to Sam Allardyce

West Ham star Joey O’Brien thought he would have been given the chance by Bolton and not released.

Instead, Sam Allardyce came to the midfielder’s rescue by offering him the chance to train and then helped the Hammers by lifting them back to the Premier League, at the Trotters’ expense.

“I thought at the time when I got released by the manager, I thought I was going to get kept on at Bolton,” O’Brien told The Sun.

“I always backed myself that I was going to be good enough.

“Thankfully the boss at West Ham — whom I owe a lot to in my career anyway — he gave me the opportunity to go down training when I was released by Bolton when I had no offers.

“But in the Championship, it is physically more demanding than the Premier League.

“I looked at high-intensity stats, the out-of-possession stats and the physical stats, the physical stats are higher in the Championship than in the Premier League.”