Sam on the Saints

  • by Staff Writer
  • Monday, 13th February 2012

Sam Allardyce was in optimistic mood when questioned about the visit of Southampton to the Boleyn Ground tomorrow night.

The West Ham manager, who is one of several English managers to be linked with the vacant national team manager's job told Sky Sports that his team are looking forward to testing themselves against the Saints, who won the corresponding fixture earlier in the season by the narrowest of margins.

"We're in really good form at the moment; we've won our last four [at home] on the trot so hopefully we can continue that," said Allardyce. "But there's still a long way to go - 15, 16 games after this one.

"We know what we've got to do; we've got to try and stick to that two points per game target that we set ourselves. If we can get near to that or equal that total we'll almost guarantee automatic promotion."

Despite having captured the likes of George John, Nicky Maynard, Ricardo Vaz Te and Ravel Morrison during the January transfer window, Allardyce - who will be without the services of captain Kevin Nolan who is suspended following his early dismissal against Millwall last weekend - refused to talk about team selection.

However he confirmed that at least two of his new signings may have a part to play. "Both Nicky Maynard and [Ricardo] Vaz Te are in the squad," he revealed. "Both players have proven that they can score goals at this level.

"We've been a little short of scoring goals recently because the front men, particularly, haven't hit the back of the net as often as we would have liked. So we've gone out and improved that.

"It puts greater pressure on everybody and hopefully that [policy] will bear fruit, starting on Tuesday night. The amount of chances that we create, we have sort of let ourselves down in terms of how many goals we've scored. But we've still managed to win football matches, which is the most important thing."

And with regards to the vacant England position - for which former United manager Harry Redknapp is strong favourite, despite spending two weeks recently in the dock facing tax evasion charges - Allardyce said that it was very much a 'wait and see' situation.

"I'm not putting myself forward one way or the other," he confirmed. "If they come knocking then there's a decision to be made. At the moment it's entirely up to them [the FA] to get their house in order, draw up the short list and then we'll move forward accordingly.

"If and when I'm on that list then I'll make a decision one way or the other."

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