Allardyce on... Swansea City

  • by Staff Writer
  • Sunday, 7th December 2014

Three goals, three wins in a week and third in the table. No wonder Sam Allardyce was cock-a-hoop when he spoke to the media following West Ham's 3-1 defeat of Swansea City at the Boleyn on Sunday afternoon...


Sam: You said this was going to be a big week for West Ham United and we can see why now. You've played three and won three, you've come from behind twice and Andy Carroll's scoring again. Do you think it can get any better?

I hope so! If we can stay as consistent as we've been over the last nine games, where we've only had one defeat. Three wins in eight days hasn't been matched by anyone else in the Premier League. Only Manchester United can match it and they play tomorrow, don't they.

It shows you the size of three victories at this stage of the season in a short period of time because we're third in the league now. We've put a nice gap between the teams below us in that position and we've just got to try and maintain it now.

The changes to the team again from Tuesday paid off which is a big decision for me and the staff because when you have a winning team everybody asks 'why change it'? But players get fatigue in this period of time, [especially] the players coming back from injury who I felt needed to play.

It's paid off handsomely because we deserved to win today. Not only that, but we've won playing some really good attacking football today.

Was that Andy's best ever performance for West Ham?

I'd have to say it's very close to it. When he's scored two at the end of it I think you have to say yes.

His movement and the quality of our balls in our box now has been apparent all season. Not only has Andy scored two with his head today, we got two headers at West Brom and we've scored more headed goals than anybody else because of the quality of our ball in the final third and the technical ability that's required to score goals.

That seems to get lost in the game today. People don't seem to talk about how much technical ability is required to meet a ball in the air at the right time and guide it in the right place, to put it in the back of the net. Certainly not just Andy but other players too, like [Diafra] Sakho, seem particularly good at that which is good for us.

Is Andy 100 per cent fit?

He still needs a little more match fitness but he's 100 per cent fit because he's played all the games this week. His recovery is good, we brought him off with 25 minutes to go on Tuesday night as he faded but he's recovered well.

Because he's scored two he's going to want a hat-trick even more. so we thought about taking him off [again today] but we left him on to try and get the hat-trick and enjoy what's been a very good eight days for us.

You talked about the technical ability required to meet the ball in the air; is there any striker better than Andy Carroll at doing that?

Bony's not bad. If you look at the quality of his heading at goal it's really very good, so I think he's on par. We saw his goalscoring abilities again today. It wasn't with his head, but he tucked the chance away calmly right against the run of play. We got caught on the break.

The players showed tremendous character to come back from a goal down again and win the game.

How important is Alex Song to your team?

He gives us a little bit more composure when we play. We've earned quite a bit of respect now so play against teams who sit behind the ball. Alex Song is the kind of quality player who has the ability to break that system down with his passing. He's very calm on the ball and waits for the right opportunity. He pauses, waits for the opportunity and then plays the right pass forward for us. That gives us a dimension in terms of breaking teams down who sit behind the ball, like Swansea did today. We'll come across more and more of that now as the season goes on because of the respect we've gained and the position we're in.

What are your thoughts on the red card?

Mike Dean [fourth official] tells me it was going to be a red card all day for denying a goalscoring opportunity and if Sakho had scored, he would have disallowed it. So, he's already blown for that for denying a goalscoring opportunity, which it was. Sakho should have scored anyway but it was a goalscoring opportunity as he was fouled.

If he'd blown, I think we would have been disappointed had he scored it! But that's the explanation from the fourth official.

Valencia came off at half time for Sakho, who's so powerful. Did you have an issue with Valencia or did you just want to re-jig it?

He wasn't his normal self after the injury. We get players back from injury sometimes who can go back in like they've never been away and sometimes it takes a while to get going. He wasn't as good as we know he can be so we bring our leading goalscorer on. That obviously made us that little bit better .

Enner will be back, there's no doubt about that. He'll be disappointed, but the fact of the matter is there's big competition for places. Everyone has to continue to play at their best otherwise there's someone there who'll take your place.

Was it an injury at half time?

No. It was tactical. The only injury we got was Carl Jenkinson late on with what looked like a bit of a hamstring.

If you do play teams who sit back against you could there be two better strikers than Andy and Sakho, who want to play right in the opponents' box, to push forward like that?

When teams play like that it's where you get the service from. If the service keeps coming from too deep, in front of eight or nine players from the opposition then it's difficult to get those players the right sort of quality to win headers to score.

That's why I said Alex Song is important, because he plays through tight areas, he plays through defences who try to play tight and gets us further up the pitch with the ball in wider areas to put the sort of crosses in we need to break it down.

We're a force and we've also got the likes of Mauro Zarate, who gives us another dimension. Plus Carlton Cole, so we've some really good options for our front line today. Our choices were right, our system was right - we proved that with the performance. Not only the result but the performance which was very good.

You mentioned something about a contract extension on Sky...

Did I? Yes I did, yeah... [laughs]

It wasn't me. It was a question that was asked. I said I was in this position before, when we first got into the Premier League. We started very well in the Premier League and sooner or later we'll sit round the table and talk about it.

Thank you.

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