Under-pressure Sam keen for reinforcements

West Ham boss Sam Allardyce is desperate to get key personnel fit with his position as manager hanging in the balance.

Skipper Kevin Nolan will be back in contention as West Ham host Arsenal on St Stephen’s Day, having served his three-match ban. Allardyce has warmly welcomed the midfielders’ return and is understandably keen to see the return of other influential absentees.

He explained: “We’ve got to go all out to get some of the players who are injured back in the team, because they will make a difference to us.

“There are too few players who are fit at the moment for me. My position is always this. When Stewart Downing, Winston Reid, Ricardo Vaz Te and Andy Carroll are playing back in the team, it will make the team bigger, stronger and bring more quality.

“That’s no disrespect to what the players are doing at the moment, but everyone wants their best players fit. We’re missing them and we need to try to get them back as soon as we possibly can.”

Allardyce urged Hammers players to forget about the weekend’s disappointing defeat by Manchester United and to look ahead of a flurry of festive fixtures.

West Ham host Arsenal and West Brom in the space of just three days this week. A tally of 14 points from 17 games has left Allardyce’s men in a dangerous position and the manager knows a dogfight lies ahead.

“It’s a difficult test for us now and it’s going to be a long haul in terms of digging ourselves out of this position,” he said. “We just have to make sure we don’t make the types of error we made on Saturday.

“We have to be more consistent in our performances and we’ve got to find more goals.

“I can’t complain about Saturday’s result and I can’t complain about the fact that we were 2-0 down at half-time because of our own deficiencies in our performance.”

“It’s about forgetting Saturday and moving on to Arsenal.”