Sam Allardyce and Neil McDonald

Hammers boss admits his side were fortunate

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West Ham boss Sam Allardyce was the first to admit that his side ‘were not at their best’ following the Hammers’ 2-1 win against Nottingham Forest on Saturday.

The victory moved Allardyce’s men to the summit of the Championship table for the first time this season, with Southampton not playing until Monday night, and although both of West Ham’s goals came from the penalty spot courtesy of Mark Noble, the Hammers chief was pleased with his side’s professionalism.

“I think it was quite a fortunate penalty that we got,” he said of the Hammers’ first spot-kick, which was awarded when Jack Collison’s cross was adjudged to have been handled by Forest defender Guy Moussi.

“But you’ve got to be fully professional and dispose of it when you get the opportunity. It settled us down a bit because we all know that it wasn’t one of our best days.

“When you can dig one out, like we’ve done today, when it’s not your best day and you’re not on your best form, it shows the resilience and the commitment of the players.

“All good teams at the top have to win a game when they don’t play at their best – and we’ve done that.”

However, the disappointment of not seeing his side play at their best was soon forgotten by Allardyce and replaced with the fact that the Hammers moved into top spot in the league.

“We’re disappointed in our performance but we’re delighted that we’ve won another very valuable three points,” he said.

“Of course it brings us three wins on the trot again and we’re back on a winning streak.

“As hard as we made it for ourselves we won it, it’s three points that takes us to the top of the league for the first time.

“When we look at the table, we are three points ahead of Southampton which is what we wanted to be at the end of the game.

“We haven’t done it how we wanted to, but we’ve done it. From our point of the view we are top of the league for the first time in 27 games. I think we will get a big psychological boost from it.”

Allardyce’s men now have a break before their next game, which is a trip to Ipswich Town on January 31, and the West Ham boss is looking forward to welcoming back some injured players to the squad, as well as doing all he can to bring in some new attacking reinforcements.

“Lots more players are coming back from injury who are available for selection,” he said.

“I’m really pleased that Matt Taylor and Guy Demel will be back.

“We suffered a bit of an injury to Papa Bouba Diop, a bit of a thigh, but there is time for him to recover.

“Against Forest we created some chances from really good movement and had some opportunities to score. I still had that nagging doubt that we hadn’t converted chances to goals in open play.

“It’s still a little concern but I still have faith in the players here even though I am looking to strengthen in that area.

“At the start of the season we were having no problem finishing our chances. We scored four against Watford, four at Forest, three against Leicester and four against Blackpool, so we’ve shown we can do it but at the moment we’re not quite clinical enough.”